I

The Dog-Star’s and the Lion’s days
Oppress with more than searing rays:
Fear grips the land, her demons gnaw,
Loosed in a frenzied craze
Now made the only law.

The sweltering midsummer heat,
The rays that mercilessly beat
Make blood flow hot and fast with rage;
Rouse the bowed to their feet,
To burst their self-forged cage.

Chorus:
O Thermidor, hot Thermidor,
Your blazing tropic days restore
A reeling world to life and sense
With new-found will for self-defense.

II

Far too long has the Terror reigned
Far too long have her henchmen stained
The once-fair streets with guiltless blood.
No innocence remained
To stave the crimson flood.

Far too long have we borne her curse,
The manic frenzy to reverse
The ways, the faith that bound us all.
To die could not be worse;
To live demands its fall!

Chorus:
O Thermidor, fair Thermidor,
When even cowards fear no more,
When even women rise to arms
To right the toll of endless harms.

III

Then like this summer afternoon
When sun-seared bodies wilt and swoon
Until a thundercloud swells high
And the wide Heavens soon
Grows dark as it comes nigh,

Then it lets loose a rushing gale,
Hurls thunder, lightning-bolts, and hail,
And pours deluging torrents down;
So shall our wrath prevail!
So shall our vengeance drown!

Chorus:
O Thermidor, bright Thermidor,
When long-withheld grief bursts to pour
Out with the raging tempest’s force
Upon the heads that were its source.

IV

Let loose the cry: To arms! Arise!
Proclaim it to the highest skies!
From windows, rooftops, crossroads, say:
The realm of fear and lies
Now dies. This is our day!

Take up the pitchfork, spade, and club!
Into the streets! March! Seize and drub
All traitors who dare block our way!
With every blow we scrub
The Terror’s stain away.

Chorus:
O Thermidor, fierce Thermidor
The Terror’s minions shrink before
The forces your bright days have stirred
Upon the Fates’ and Angels’ word.

V

Seize the vile criminals who made
Terror our queen, the land afraid.
Now let them fear, then let them die
Beneath the very blade
That was their joy to ply.

The blade falls; vengeful justice strikes!
Now lift the bloody heads on pikes!
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” resounds the cheer.
Onward! So must their likes,
Their allies perish here.

Chorus:
O Thermidor, just Thermidor,
High time to settle this, our score –
No! Rather, to let Truth, and Fate
Spell doom, and Justice vindicate!

VI

The Revolution eats her own!
Her sons now reap what they have sown!
Thus always to the Demon’s brood!
And ever be it known
How they fell once we stood.

Let all the Terror’s minions fear!
Let them quake as our wrath draws near!
Her righteous twin, aglow in white,
Thrusts forth her sword and spear
By blood to set wrong right.

Chorus:
O Thermidor, sweet Thermidor,
How much shall bounteous Fructidor
Owe to your rains of tyrants’ blood
That irrigates our native mud!

VII

The terrorizers’ blood is shed,
The Revolution’s hordes lie dead.
Now we at last breathe truly free,
Without that beast to dread,
The ape of liberty.

It lived and perished by the sword,
For flouting order, God, and Word.
Up from the wreckage, let us build,
Raise up a world restored
That mad rage nearly killed.

Chorus:
O Thermidor, great Thermidor,
Your name shall live forevermore,
A doubt to make each tyrant quake,
A rock against which mobs shall break,
A time when revolutions shake
And perish in their gore.
O Thermidor, our Thermidor!

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We hope you will join us in The Imaginative Conservative community. The Imaginative Conservative is an online journal for those who seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. We address culture, liberal learning, politics, political economy, literature, the arts and the American Republic in the tradition of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, Wilhelm Roepke, Robert Nisbet, Richard Weaver, M.E. Bradford, Eric Voegelin, Christopher Dawson, Paul Elmer More, and other leaders of Imaginative Conservatism. Some conservatives may look at the state of Western culture and the American Republic and see a huge dark cloud which seems ready to unleash a storm that may well wash away what we most treasure of our inherited ways. Others focus on the silver lining which may be found in the next generation of traditional conservatives who have been inspired by Dr. Kirk and his like. We hope that The Imaginative Conservative answers T.S. Eliot’s call to “redeem the time, redeem the dream.” The Imaginative Conservative offers to our families, our communities, and the Republic, a conservatism of hope, grace, charity, gratitude, and prayer.

The featured image is The Arrest of Robespierre, ‘The Night of the 9th to 10th Thermidor, Year II, 27th July 1794’ (c. 1796) by Jean-Joseph-François Tassaert (1765–c. 1835). It has been brightened slightly for clarity and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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