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We were not cynics, and we dreamed A Man who made no truce With lies nor ancient privilege Nor old, entrenched abuse.
We dreamed ... we dreamed ... Youth dreamed a dream!
And even you forgot Yourself, one moment, and dreamed, too-- Struck, while your mood was hot!
Struck three or four good blows ... and then Turned back to easier things: The cheap applause, the blatant mob, The praise of underlings!
Praise ... praise ... was ever man so filled, So avid still, of praise?
So hungry for the crowd's acclaim, The sycophantic phrase?
O you whom Greatness beckoned to ...
O swollen Littleness Who turned from Immortality To fawn upon Success!
O blind with love of self, who led Youth's vision to defeat, Bawling and brawling for rewards, Loud, in the common street!
O you who were so quick to judge-- Leader, and loved, of yore-- Hear now the judgment of our youth: _Leader and Chief no more!_
THE BAYONET
(1914)
THE great guns slay from a league away, the death-bolts fly unseen, And bellowing hill replies to hill, machine to brute machine, But still in the end when the long lines bend and the battle hangs in doubt They take to the steel in the same old way that their fathers fought it out-- It is man to man and breast to breast and eye to bloodshot eye And the reach and twist of the thrusting wrist, as it was in the days gone by!
Along the shaken hills the guns their drumming thunder roll-- But the keen blades thrill with the l.u.s.t to kill that leaps from the slayer's soul!
For hand and heart and living steel, one pulse of hate they feel.
Is your clan afraid of the naked blade? Does it flinch from the bitter steel?
Perish your dreams of conquest then, your swollen hopes and bold, For empire dwells with the stabbing blade, as it did in the days of old!
THE BUTCHERS AT PRAYER
(1914)
EACH nation as it draws the sword And flings its standard to the air Pet.i.tions piously the Lord-- Vexing the void abyss with prayer.
O irony too deep for mirth!
O posturing apes that rant, and dare This antic att.i.tude! O Earth, With your wild jest of wicked prayer!
I dare not laugh ... a rising swell Of laughter breaks in shrieks somewhere-- No doubt they relish it in h.e.l.l, This cosmic jest of Earth at prayer!
SHADOWS
HAUNTED
(THE GHOST SPEAKS)
A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain?
Then why do ye start and s.h.i.+ver so?
That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain?
But it sounds like another noise we know!
The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate-- Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
Spirits there be that pa.s.s in peace; Mine pa.s.sed in a whorl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul-- Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- I would drag ye whining from h.e.l.l's own gate: To me, to me, ye must pay the toll!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?
And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind?
Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day When ye heard a voice in the calling wind?
Why did ye falter and look behind At the creeping mists when the hour grew late?
Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin-- In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate!
Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
A NIGHTMARE
LEAGUES before me, leagues behind, Clamor warring wastes of flood, All the streams of all the worlds Flung together, mad of mood; Through the canon beats a sound, Regular of interval, Distant, drumming, m.u.f.fled, dull, Thunderously rhythmical;
Crafts slip by my startled soul-- Soul that cowers, a thing apart-- They are corpuscles of blood!
That's the throbbing of a heart!
G.o.d of terrors!--am I mad?-- Through my body, mine own soul, Shrunken to an atom's size, Voyages toward an unguessed goal!
THE MOTHER
THE mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, (While the twitching body mocked the sun) Lifted to Heaven her broken heart And called for sympathy.
Then Mother Mary bent to her, Bent from her place by G.o.d's left side, And whispered: "Peace--do I not know?-- My son was crucified!"
"O Mother Mary," answered she, "You cannot, cannot enter in To my soul's woe--you cannot know-- For your son wrought no sin!"
(And men whose work compelled them there, Their hearts were stricken dead;
They heard the rope creak on the beam; I thought I heard the frightened ghost Whimpering overhead.)
The mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, Lifted to Christ her broken heart And called in agony.
Then Lord Christ bent to her and said: "Be comforted, be comforted; I know your grief; the whole world's woe I bore upon my head."
