Madame Liberty

What pains you?

Madame Liberty, are you stricken?
Of what illness pains you,
Makes you weak,
Binds you to your bed?

Is it your suitors?
Men of differing ideals that claim to fight in your name,
Yet with loyalties that lie only with themselves,
And their paychecks.

Is it your enemies?
Scheming in the shadows,
Never making themselves known,
But the effects of their machinations felt always.

Forgive me, but is it yourself?
With your many flaws,
Kinks to be hammered out yet,
And haunted by the choices of the past?

Madame Liberty, I plead with you!
I pray and beg of you, would you tell me what aches?
Such a world would be one I could not bear,
Should death claim Madame Liberty, the woman I hold so dear.