There's a love supreme in the great hereafter, The buds of earth are blooms in heaven; The smiles of the world are ripples of laughter When back to its Aidenn the soul is given: And the tears of the world, though long in flowing, Water the fields of the bye-and-bye; They fall as dews on the sweet grass growing When the fountains of sorrow and grief run dry. Though clouds hang over the furrows now sowing There's a harvest sun-wreath in the After-sky!
No love is wasted, no heart beats vainly, There's a vast perfection beyond the grave; Up the bays of heaven the stars shine plainly, The stars lying dim on the brow of the wave. And the lights of our loves, though they flicker and wane, they Shall shine all undimmed in the ether-nave. For the altars of God are lit with souls Fanned to flaming with love where the star-wind rolls.
=St. Johns, Michigan, 1889.= AT THE GRAVE IN WALDHEIM Quiet they lie in their shrouds of rest, Their lids kissed close 'neath the lips of peace; Over each pulseless and painless breast The hands lie folded and softly pressed, As a dead dove presses a broken nest; Ah, broken hearts were the price of these!
The lips of their anguish are cold and still, For them are the clouds and the gloom all past; No longer the woe of the world can thrill The chords of those tender hearts, or fill The silent dead-house! The "people's will" Has mapped asunder the strings at last.
"The people's will!" Ah, in years to come, Dearly ye'll weep that ye did not save! Do ye not hear now the muffled drum, The tramping feet and the ceaseless hum, Of the million marchers,--trembling, dumb, In their tread to a yawning, giant grave?
And yet, ah! yet there's a rift of white! 'Tis breaking over the martyrs' shrine! Halt there, ye doomed ones,--it scathes the night, As lightning darts from its scabbard bright And sweeps the face of the sky with light! "No more shall be spilled out the blood-red wine!"
These are the words it has written there, Keen as the lance of the northern morn; The sword of Justice gleams in its glare, And the arm of Justice, upraised and bare, Is true to strike, aye, 'tis strong to dare; It will fall where the curse of our land is born.
No more shall the necks of the nations be crushed, No more to dark Tyranny's throne bend the knee; No more in abjection be ground to the dust! By their widows, their orphans, our dead comrades' trust, By the brave heart-beats stilled, by the brave voices hushed, We swear that humanity yet shall be free!
=Pittsburg, 1889.= THE HURRICANE[A] ("We are the birds of the coming storm."--_August Spies._) The tide is out, the wind blows off the shore; Bare burn the white sands in the scorching sun; The sea complains, but its great voice is low.
Bitter thy woes, O People, And the burden Hardly to be borne! Wearily grows, O People, All the aching Of thy pierced heart, bruised and torn! But yet thy time is not, And low thy moaning. Desert thy sands! Not yet is thy breath hot, Vengefully blowing; It wafts o'er lifted hands.
The tide has turned; the vane veers slowly round; Slow clouds are sweeping o'er the blinding light; White crests curl on the sea,--its voice grows deep.
Angry thy heart, O People, And its bleeding Fire-tipped with rising hate! Thy clasped hands part, O People, For thy praying Warmed not the desolate! God did not hear thy moan: Now it is swelling To a great drowning cry; A dark wind-cloud, a groan, Now backward veering From that deaf sky!
The tide flows in, the wind roars from the depths, The whirled-white sand heaps with the foam-white waves; Thundering the sea rolls o'er its shell-crunched wall!
Strong is thy rage, O People, In its fury Hurling thy tyrants down! Thou metest wage, O People. Very swiftly, Now that thy hate is grown: Thy time at last is come; Thou heapest anguish, Where thou thyself wert bare! No longer to thy dumb God clasped and kneeling, _Thou answerest thine own prayer._ [A] Since the death of the author this poem has been put to music by the young American composer, George Edwards.
UT SEMENTEM FECERIS, ITA METES (To the Czar, on a woman, a political prisoner, being flogged to death in Siberia.)
How many drops must gather to the skies Before the cloud-burst comes, we may not know; How hot the fires in under hells must glow Ere the volcano's scalding lavas rise, Can none say; but all wot the hour is sure! Who dreams of vengeance has but to endure! He may not say how many blows must fall, How many lives be broken on the wheel, How many corpses stiffen 'neath the pall, How many martyrs fix the blood-red seal; But certain is the harvest time of Hate! And when weak moans, by an indignant world Re-echoed, to a throne are backward hurled, Who listens, hears the mutterings of Fate!
BASTARD BORN Why do you clothe me with scarlet of shame? Why do you point with your finger of scorn? What is the crime that you hissingly name When you sneer in my ears, "Thou bastard born?"
Am I not as the rest of you, With a hope to reach, and a dream to live? With a soul to suffer, a heart to know The pangs that the thrusts of the heartless give?
I am no monster! Look at me-- Straight in my eyes, that they do not shrink! Is there aught in them you can see To merit this hemlock you make me drink?
This poison that scorches my soul like fire, That burns and burns until love is dry, And I shrivel with hate, as hot as a pyre, A corpse, while its smoke curls up to the sky?
Will you touch my hand? It is flesh like yours; Perhaps a little more brown and grimed, For it could not be white while the drawers' and hewers', My brothers, were calloused and darkened and slimed.
Yet touch it! It is no criminal's hand! No children are toiling to keep it fair! It is free from the curse of the stolen land, It is clean of the theft of the sea and air!
It has set no seals to a murderous law, To sign a bitter, black league with death! No covenants false do these fingers draw In the name of "The State" to barter Faith!
It bears no stain of the yellow gold That earth's wretches give as the cost of heaven! No priestly garment of silken fold I wear as the price of their "sins forgiven"!
Still do you shrink! Still I hear the hiss Between your teeth, and I feel the scorn That flames in your gaze! Well, what is this, This crime I commit, being "bastard born"?
What! You whisper my "eyes are gray," The "color of hers," up there on the hill, Where the white stone gleams, and the willow spray Falls over her grave in the starlight still!
My "hands are shaped like" those quiet hands, Folded away from their life, their care; And the sheen that lies on my short, fair strands Gleams darkly down on her buried hair!
My voice is toned like that silent tone That might, if it could, break up through the sod With such rebuke as would shame your stone, Stirring the grass-roots in their clod!
And my heart-beats thrill to the same strong chords; And the blood that was hers is mine to-day; And the thoughts she loved, I love; and the words That meant most to her, to me most say!
_She was my mother--I her child!_ Could ten thousand priests have made us more? Do you curse the bloom of the heather wild? Do you trample the flowers and cry "impure"?
Do you shun the bird-songs' silver shower? Does their music arouse your curling scorn That none but God blessed them? The whitest flower, The purest song, were but "bastard born"!
_This is my sin_,--I was born of her! _This is my crime_,--that I reverence deep! God, that her pale corpse may not stir, Press closer down on her lids--the sleep!
Would you have me hate her? Me, who knew That the gentlest soul in the world looked there, Out of the gray eyes that pitied you E'en while you cursed her? The long brown hair That waved from her forehead, has brushed my cheek, When her soft lips have drunk up my salt of grief; And the voice, whose echo you hate, would speak The hush of pity and love's relief!
And those still hands that are folded now Have touched my sorrows for years away! Would you have me question her whence and how The love-light streamed from her heart's deep ray?
Do you question the sun that it gives its gold? Do you scowl at the cloud when it pours its rain Till the fields that were withered and burnt and old Are fresh and tender and young again?
Do you search the source of the breeze that sweeps The rush of the fever from tortured brain? Do you ask whence the perfume that round you creeps When your soul is wrought to the quick with pain?
She was my Sun, my Dew, my Air, The highest, the purest, the holiest; =Peace=--was the shade of her beautiful hair, =Love=--was all that I knew on her breast!
Would you have me forget? Or remembering Say that her love had bloomed from Hell? Then =Blessed be Hell=! And let Heaven sing "_Te Deum laudamus_," until it swell And ring and roll to the utterest earth, That the damned are free,--since out of sin Came the whiteness that shamed all ransomed worth Till God opened the gates, saying "Enter in!"
* * * * * What! In the face of the witness I bear To her measureless love and her purity, Still of your hate would you make me to share, Despising that she gave life to me?
You would have me stand at her helpless grave, To dig through its earth with a venomed dart! This is Honor! and Right! and Brave! To fling a stone at her pulseless heart!
This is Virtue! To blast the lips Speechless beneath the Silence dread! To lash with Slander's scorpion whips The voiceless, defenseless, helpless dead!
* * * * * God! I turn to an adder now! Back upon you I hurl your scorn! Bind the scarlet upon your brow! _Ye_ it is, who are "bastard born"!
Touch me not! These hands of mine Despise your fairness--the leper's white! Tanned and hardened and black with grime, They are clean beside your souls to-night!
Basely born! 'Tis ye are base! Ye who would guerdon holy trust With slavish law to a tyrant race, To sow the earth with the seed of lust.
Base! By Heaven! Prate of peace, When your garments are red with the stain of wars. Reeling with passion's mad release By your sickly gaslight damn the stars!
Blurred with wine ye behold the snow Smirched with the foulness that blots within! What of purity can ye know, Ye ten-fold children of Hell and Sin?
Ye to judge her! Ye to cast The stone of wrath from your house of glass! Know ye the Law, that ye dare to blast The bell of gold with your clanging brass?
Know ye the harvest the reapers reap Who drop in the furrow the seed of scorn? Out of this anguish ye harrow deep, Ripens the sentence: "_Ye_, bastard born!"
Ay, sin-begotten, hear the curse; Not mine--not hers--but the fatal Law! "Who bids one suffer, shall suffer worse; Who scourges, himself shall be scourgèd raw!
"For the thoughts ye think, and the deeds ye do, Move on, and on, till the flood is high, And the dread dam bursts, and the waves roar through, Hurling a cataract dirge to the sky!
"To-night ye are deaf to the beggar's prayer; To-morrow the thieves shall batter your wall! Ye shall feel the weight of a starved child's care When your warders under the Mob's feet fall!
"'Tis the roar of the whirlwind ye invoke When ye scatter the wind of your brother's moans; 'Tis the red of your hate on your own head broke, When the blood of the murdered spatters the stones!
"Hark ye! Out of the reeking slums, Thick with the fetid stench of crime, Boiling up through their sickening scums, Bubbles that burst through the crimson wine, "Voices burst--with terrible sound, Crying the truth your dull souls ne'er saw! _We_ are _your_ sentence! The wheel turns round! The bastard spawn of your bastard law!"
This is bastard: That Man should say How Love shall love, and how Life shall live! Setting a tablet to groove God's way, Measuring how the divine shall give!
* * * * * O, Evil Hearts! Ye have maddened me, That I should interpret the voice of God! Quiet! Quiet! O angered Sea! Quiet! I go to her blessed sod!
* * * * * Mother, Mother, I come to you! Down in your grasses I press my face! Under the kiss of their cold, pure dew, I may dream that I lie in the dear old place!
Mother, sweet Mother, take me back, Into the bosom from whence I came! Take me away from the cruel rack, Take me out of the parching flame!
Fold me again with your beautiful hair, Speak to this terrible heaving Sea! Over me pour the soothing of prayer, The words of the Love-child of Galilee: HYMN (This hymn was written at the request of a Christian Science friend who proposed to set it to music. It did not represent my beliefs either then or since, but rather what I wish might be my beliefs, had I not an inexorable capacity for seeing things as they are,--a vast scheme of mutual murder, with no justice anywhere, and no God in the soul or out of it.)
I am at peace--no storm can ever touch me; On my clear heights the sunshine only falls; Far, far below glides the phantom voice of sorrows, In peace-lifted light the Silence only calls. Ah, Soul, ascend! The mountain way, up-leading, Bears to the heights whereon the Blest have trod! Lay down the burden;--stanch the heart's sad bleeding; =Be ye at peace=, for know that Ye are God!
Not long the way, not far in a dim heaven; In the locked Self seek ye the guiding star: Clear shine its rays, illumining the shadow; There, where God is, there, too, O Souls ye are. Ye are at one, and bound in Him forever, Ev'n as the wave is bound in the great sea; Never to drift beyond, below Him, never! Whole as God is, so, even so, are ye.
YOU AND I (A reply to "You and I in the Golden Weather," by Dyer D. Lum.)
You and I, in the sere, brown weather, When clouds hang thick in the frowning sky, When rain-tears drip on the bloomless heather, Unheeding the storm-blasts will walk together, And look to each other--You and I.
You and I, when the clouds are shriven To show the cliff-broods of lightnings high; When over the ramparts, swift, thunder-driven, Rush the bolts of Hate from a Hell-lit Heaven, Will smile at each other--You and I.
You and I, when the bolts are falling, The hot air torn with the earth's wild cries, Will lean through the darkness where Death is calling, Will search through the shadows where Night is palling, And find the light in each other's eyes.
You and I, when black sheets of water Drench and tear us and drown our breath, Below this laughter of Hell's own daughter, Above the smoke of the storm-girt slaughter, Will hear each other and gleam at Death.
You and I, in the gray night dying, When over the east-land the dawn-beams fly, Down in the groans, in the low, faint crying, Down where the thick blood is blackly lying, Will reach out our weak arms, You and I.
You and I, in the cold, white weather, When over our corpses the pale lights lie, Will rest at last from the dread endeavor, Pressed to each other, for parting--never! Our dead lips together, You and I.
You and I, when the years in flowing Have left us behind with all things that die, With the rot of our bones shall give soil for growing The loves of the Future, made sweet for blowing By the dew of the kiss of a last good-bye!
THE TOAST OF DESPAIR We have cried,--and the Gods are silent; We have trusted,--and been betrayed; We have loved,--and the fruit was ashes; We have given,--the gift was weighed.
We know that the heavens are empty, That friendship and love are names; That truth is an ashen cinder, The end of life's burnt-out flames.
Vainly and long have we waited, Through the night of the human roar, For a single song on the harp of Hope, Or a ray from a day-lit shore.
Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet, And bow-dyed flashes gleam; But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet Run after a marsh-light beam.
In the hour of our need the song departs, And the sea-moans of sorrow swell; The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh That is drowned in the deep death-knell.
The light we chased with our stumbling feet As the goal of happier years, Swings high and low and vanishes,-- The bow-dyes were of our tears.
God is a lie, and Faith is a lie, And a tenfold lie is Love; Life is a problem without a why, And never a thing to prove.
It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies, And divides without aim or end; Its answers all false, though false-named true,-- Wife, husband, lover, friend.
We know it now, and we care no more; What matters life or death? We tiny insects emerge from earth, Suffer, and yield our breath.
Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill, Dreaming of "mighty things,"-- Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean's wrath, In the rush of Time's awful wings.
The sun smiles gold, and the planets white, And a billion stars smile, still; Yet, fierce as we, each wheels towards death, And cannot stay his will.
Then build, ye fools, your mighty things, That Time shall set at naught; Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings, And the false bow your tears have wrought.
For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes, And a pledge to fire and wave; A swifter whirl to the dance of death, And a loud huzza for the Grave!
IN MEMORIAM (To Dyer D. Lum, my friend and teacher, who died April 6, 1893.)
Great silent heart! These barren drops of grief Are not for you, attained unto your rest; This sterile salt upon the withered leaf Of love, is mine--mine the dark burial guest.
Far, far within that deep, untroubled sea We watched together, walking on the sands, Your soul has melted,--painless, silent, free; Mine the wrung heart, mine the clasped, useless hands.
Into the whirl of life, where none remember, I bear your image, ever unforgot; The "Whip-poor-will," still "wailing in December," Cries the same cry--cries, cries, and ceases not.
The future years with all their waves of faces Roll shoreward singing the great undertone; Yours is not there;--in the old, well-loved places I look, and pass, and watch the sea alone.
Alone along the gleaming, white sea-shore, The sea-spume spraying thick around my head, Through all the beat of waves and winds that roar, I go, remembering that you are dead.
That you are dead, and nowhere is there one Like unto you;--and nowhere Love leaps Death;-- And nowhere may the broken race be run;-- Nowhere unsealed the seal that none gainsaith.
Yet in my ear that deep, sweet undertone Grows deeper, sweeter, solemner to me,-- Dreaming your dreams, watching the light that shone So whitely to you, yonder, on the sea.
Your voice is there, there in the great life-sound-- Your eyes are there, out there, within the light; Your heart, within the pulsing Race-heart drowned, Beats in the immortality of Right.
O Life, I love you for the love of him Who showed me all your glory and your pain! "Unto Nirvana"--so the deep tones sing-- And there--and there--we--shall--be--one--again.
OUT OF THE DARKNESS Who am I? Only one of the commonest common people, Only a worked-out body, a shriveled and withered soul, What right have I to sing then? None; and I do not, I cannot. Why ruin the rhythm and rhyme of the great world's songs with moaning? I know not--nor why whistles must shriek, wheels ceaselessly mutter; Nor why all I touch turns to clanging and clashing and discord; I know not;--I know only this,--I was born to this, live in it hourly, Go round with it, hum with it, curse with it, would laugh with it, had it laughter; It is my breath--and that breath goes outward from me in moaning.
O you, up there, I have heard you; I am "God's image defaced," "In heaven reward awaits me," "hereafter I shall be perfect"; Ages you've sung that song, but what is it to me, think you? If you heard down here in the smoke and the smut, in the smear and the offal, In the dust, in the mire, in the grime and in the slime, in the hideous darkness, How the wheels turn your song into sounds of horror and loathing and cursing, The offer of lust, the sneer of contempt and acceptance, thieves' whispers, The laugh of the gambler, the suicide's gasp, the yell of the drunkard, If you heard them down here you would cry, "The reward of such is damnation," If you heard them, I say, your song of "rewarded hereafter" would fail.
You, too, with your science, your titles, your books, and your long explanations That tell me how I am come up out of the dust of the cycles, Out of the sands of the sea, out of the unknown primeval forests,-- Out of the growth of the world have become the bud and the promise,-- Out of the race of the beasts have arisen, proud and triumphant,-- You, if you knew how your words rumble round in the wheels of labor! If you knew how my hammering heart beats, "Liar, liar, you lie! Out of all buds of the earth we are most blasted and blighted! What beast of all the beasts is not prouder and freer than we?" You, too, who sing in high words of the glory of Man universal, The beauty of sacrifice, debt of the future, the present immortal, The glory of use, absorption by Death of the being in Being, You, if you knew what jargon it makes, down here, would be quiet.
Oh, is there no one to find or to speak a meaning to _me_, To me as I am,--the hard, the ignorant, withered-souled worker? To me upon whom God and Science alike have stamped "failure," To me who know nothing but labor, nothing but sweat, dirt, and sorrow, To me whom you scorn and despise, you up there who sing while I moan? To me as I am,--for me as I am--not dying but living; _Not_ my future, my present! my body, my needs, my desires! Is there no one, In the midst of this rushing of phantoms--of Gods, of Science, of Logic, Of Philosophy, Morals, Religion, Economy,--all this that helps not, All these ghosts at whose altars you worship, these ponderous, marrowless Fictions, Is there no one who thinks, is there nothing to help this dull moaning me?
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT The dust of a hundred years Is on thy breast, And thy day and thy night of tears Are centurine rest. Thou to whom joy was dumb, Life a broken rhyme, Lo, thy smiling time is come, And our weeping time. Thou who hadst sponge and myrrh And a bitter cross, Smile, for the day is here That we know our loss;-- Loss of thine undone deed, Thy unfinished song, Th' unspoken word for our need, Th' unrighted wrong; Smile, for we weep, we weep, For the unsoothed pain, The unbound wound burned deep, That we might gain. Mother of sorrowful eyes In the dead old days, Mother of many sighs, Of pain-shod ways; Mother of resolute feet Through all the thorns, Mother soul-strong, soul-sweet,-- Lo, after storms Have broken and beat thy dust For a hundred years, Thy memory is made just, And the just man hears. Thy children kneel and repeat: "Though dust be dust, Though sod and coffin and sheet And moth and rust Have folded and molded and pressed, Yet they cannot kill; In the heart of the world at rest She liveth still."
THE GODS AND THE PEOPLE What have you done, O skies, That the millions should kneel to you? Why should they lift wet eyes, Grateful with human dew?
Why should they clasp their hands, And bow at thy shrines, O heaven, Thanking thy high commands For the mercies that thou hast given?
What have those mercies been, O thou, who art called the Good, Who trod through a world of sin, And stood where the felon stood?
What is that wondrous peace Vouchsafed to the child of dust, For whom all doubt shall cease In the light of thy perfect trust?
How hast Thou heard their prayers Smoking up from the bleeding sod, Who, crushed by their weight of cares, Cried up to Thee, Most High God?
* * * * * Where the swamps of Humanity sicken, Read the answer, in dumb, white scars! You, Skies, gave the sore and the stricken The light of your far-off stars!
The children who plead are driven, Shelterless, through the street, Receiving the mercy of Heaven Hard-frozen in glittering sleet!
The women who prayed for pity, Who called on the saving Name, Through the walks of your merciless city Are crying the rent of shame.
The starving, who gazed on the plenty In which they might not share, Have died in their hunger, rent by The anguish of unheard prayer!
The weary who plead for remission, For a moment, only, release, Have sunk, with unheeded petition: This is the Christ-pledged Peace.
These are the mercies of Heaven, These are the answers of God, To the prayers of the agony-shriven, From the paths where the millions plod!
The silent scorn of the sightless! The callous ear of the deaf! The wrath of might to the mightless! The shroud, and the mourning sheaf!
Light--to behold their squalor! Breath--to draw in life's pain! Voices to plead and call for Heaven's help!--hearts to bleed--in vain!
* * * * * What have you done, O Church, That the weary should bless your name? Should come with faith's holy torch To light up your altar'd fane?
Why should they kiss the folds Of the garment of your High Priest? Or bow to the chalice that holds The wine of your Sacred Feast?
Have you blown out the breath of their sighs? Have you strengthened the weak, the ill? Have you wiped the dark tears from their eyes, And bade their sobbings be still?
Have you touched, have you known, have you felt, Have you bent and softly smiled In the face of the woman, who dwelt In lewdness--to feed her child?
Have you heard the cry in the night Going up from the outraged heart, Masked from the social sight By the cloak that but angered the smart?
Have you heard the children's moan, By the light of the skies denied? Answer, O Walls of Stone, In the name of your Crucified!
* * * * * Out of the clay of their heart-break, From the red dew of its sod, You have mortar'd your brick, for Christ's sake, And reared a palace to God!
Your painters have dipped their brushes In the tears and the blood of the race, Whom, LIVING, your dark frown crushes-- And limned--a DEAD Savior's face!
You have seized, in the name of God, the Child's crust from famine's dole; You have taken the price of its body And sung a mass for its soul!
You have smiled on the man, who, deceiving, Paid exemption to ease your wrath! You have cursed the poor fool who believed him, Though her body lay prone in your path!
You have laid the seal on the lip! You have bid us to be content! To bow 'neath our master's whip, And give thanks for the scourge--"heav'n sent."
These, O Church, are your thanks; These are the fruits without flaw, That flow from the chosen ranks Who keep in your perfect law; Doors hard-locked on the homeless! Stained glass windows for bread! On the living, the law of dumbness, And the law of need, for--the _dead_!
Better the dead, who, not needing, Go down to the vaults of the Earth, Than the living whose hearts lie bleeding, Crushed by you at their very birth.
* * * * * What have you done, O State, That the toilers should shout your ways; Should light up the fires of their hate If a "traitor" should dare dispraise?
How do you guard the trust That the people repose in you? Do you keep to the law of the just, And hold to the changeless true?
What do you mean when you say "The home of the free and brave"? How free are your people, pray? Have you no such thing as a slave?
What are the lauded "rights," Broad-sealed, by your Sovereign Grace? What are the love-feeding sights You yield to your subject race?
* * * * * The rights!--Ah! the right to toil, That another, idle, may reap; The right to make fruitful the soil And a meagre pittance to keep!
The right of a woman to own Her body, spotlessly pure, And starve in the street--alone! The right of the wronged--to endure!
The right of the slave--to his yoke! The right of the hungry--to pray! The right of the toiler--to vote For the master who buys his day!
You have sold the sun and the air! You have dealt in the price of blood! You have taken the lion's share While the lion is fierce for food!
You have laid the load of the strong On the helpless, the young, the weak! You have trod out the purple of wrong;-- Beware where its wrath shall wreak!
"Let the Voice of the People be heard! O----" You strangled it with your rope! Denied the last dying word, While your Trap and your Gallows spoke!
But a thousand voices rise Where the words of the martyr fell; The seed springs fast to the Skies Watered deep from that bloody well!
* * * * * Hark! Low down you will hear The storm in the underground! Listen, Tyrants, and fear! Quake at that muffled sound!
"Heavens, that mocked our dust, Smile on, in your pitiless blue! Silent as you are to us, So silent are we to you!
"Churches that scourged our brains! Priests that locked fast our hands! We planted the torch in your chains: Now gather the burning brands!
"States that have given us LAW, When we asked for THE RIGHT TO EARN BREAD! The Sword that Damocles saw By a hair swings over your head!
"What ye have sown ye shall reap: Teardrops, and Blood, and Hate, Gaunt gather before your Seat, And knock at your palace gate!
"There are murderers on your Thrones! There are thieves in your Justice-halls! White Leprosy cancers their stones, And gnaws at their worm-eaten walls!
"And the Hand of Belshazzar's Feast Writes over, in flaming light: =Thought's kingdom no more to the Priest; Nor the Law of Right unto Might=."
JOHN P. ALTGELD (After an incarceration of six long years in Joliet state prison for an act of which they were entirely innocent, namely, the throwing of the Haymarket bomb, in Chicago, May 4th, 1886, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab and Samuel Fielden, were liberated by Gov. Altgeld, who thus sacrificed his political career to an act of justice.)
There was a tableau! Liberty's clear light Shone never on a braver scene than that. Here was a prison, there a Man who sat High in the Halls of state! Beyond, the might Of ignorance and Mobs, whose hireling press Yells at their bidding like the slaver's hounds, Ready with coarse caprice to curse or bless, To make or unmake rulers!--Lo, there sounds A grating of the doors! And three poor men, Helpless and hated, having naught to give, Come from their long-sealed tomb, look up, and live, And thank this Man that they are free again. And He--to all the world this Man dares say, "Curse as you will! I have been just this day."
THE CRY OF THE UNFIT The gods have left us, the creeds have crumbled; There are none to pity and none to care: Our fellows have crushed us where we have stumbled; They have made of our bodies a bleeding stair.
Loud rang the bells in the Christmas steeples; We heard them ring through the bitter morn: The promise of old to the weary peoples Came floating sweetly,--"Christ is born."
But the words were mocking, sorely mocking, As we sought the sky through our freezing tears, We children, who've hung the Christmas stocking, And found it empty two thousand years.