# Ave Caesar! Te Morituri Salutant!

The coup d'état is blotted out  With fresher blood, with blacker crime, — As midnight horrors put to rout  The vaguer ghosts of twilight-time.
"Greeting from those who are to die! —  Hail Caesar!" — Draw the curtains round. In vain! — That mournful mocking cry  Pierces the purple with its sound.
And they who raise it enter too, —  With spectral looks and noiseless tread, — Unbidden, hold their dread review,  Beside the Emperor's very bed.
They sought in his deserted tent;  They found him in the German camp. They tarry till the oil be spent  That feeds his life's poor flickering lamp.
The hope of France, — the "gilded youth," —  So answering the trumpet's peal As if revealing how, in sooth,  The gilding oft o'erlies the steel.
Soldiers Algeria's sun has spared;  Heroes from Russia's fire and frost; Grey veterans, — scarred and scanty-haired, —  Who wept at word of eagles lost.
Workmen, who leave the rattling looms  To ply, perforce, a deadlier trade; Students, who quit their cloudy rooms  To step within a heavier shade.
Slow-breaking hearts that suffer long, —  Blinded and chilled 'neath love's eclipse; Singing no more the happy song  By horror frozen on their lips.
From castled cities battle-proof,  They press to the accusing ranks — From cottage walls, — from canvas roof, —  Ere passing to the Stygian banks.
The thousands famine yet shall waste, —  The holocaust disease will claim, — As to God's Judgment-Bar they haste,  They gaze on him who is to blame.
"Hail Caesar!" — While Napoleon's star  From yon horizon beams "Farewell!" Setting in exile, — where, afar,  The children of St. Louis dwell.
Come from the past, — once-dreaded ghosts,  Whose number and whose names he knew! — The future plants, — at countless posts, —  Sentries more terrible than you!
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. According to Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright, the following works are public domain:
* published non-government works whose author died before January 1, 1955,
* anonymous or pseudonymous works and photographs published before January 1, 1955, and
* government works published more than 50 years ago (before January 1, 1974).
This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996). This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.
Because the Australian copyright term in 1996 was 50 years, the critical date for copyright in the United States under the URAA is January 1, 1946.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse