On the seventh of April
began Pedro the Second’s rule of the Empire of Brazil
as the five-year-old’s father left the nation
to conquer Portugal again.

Five-year-olds not being well-known
for their leadership abilities,
the Empire floundered for years
with civil wars rending the land
but when the second Pedro came of age,
he ruled justly and well,
expanding the land into an international presence.
After fifty eight years,
he was overthrown by the military
and sent into terminal exile.

In this way do all good things end:
with a junta in the eighties.
But tyranny cannot make us forget
the long-ago Empire of Brazil.