He faced it, and returned. The guillotine
Flashed down on one and all.
Let the wide earth,
Still echoing its old wrath against the kings
And priests who exiled, stoned and burned and starved
The bearers of the fire, remember well
How the Republic in its red right hand
Held up Lavoisier’s head, and told mankind
In mockery, colder than the cynical snarl
Of Nero, “The Republic has no need