Bars and Shadows | Page 9

can never set you free?From fettered thraldom to the Common Foe.
Then you will find that "nation" is a name?And boundaries are things that don't exist;?That Labor's bondage, worldwide, is the same,?And ONE the enemy it must resist.
Montreal, 1914.
THE GIRLS WHO SANG FOR US
What does it mean to us that Spring is here??We asked ourselves within the great grey hall.?We shall not feel the magic of her call;?This day, like others, will be dull and drear.?And then you sang . . . and brought so very near,?The fragrant world beyond the prison wall,?The tender fields, the trees and grass, and all?The hopes and dreams that every man holds dear.
O, silvery voices, sweet with life and youth?Brushing our grey lives with your rainbow wings--?Lives that were stern and bitter with old wrong,?And cleansing them with beauty and with truth;?Reviving memories of vanished springs--?Making us whole with miracles of song!
TO EDITH
Do you remember how we walked that night?In early spring??And how we found a new and sweet delight?In everything??Do you remember how the air was filled?With mist and moonlight--how our hearts were thrilled--?And seemed to sing?
What if these walls shut out the world for me?And heaven too,?There still lives fragrant in my memory?The thought of you.?And out there now with life's high dome above you?If you but knew how very much I love you--?If you but knew . . . .
SONG OF SEPARATION
Two that I love must live alone,?Far away.?All in the world I can call my own,?Only they.?Mother and boy in the rocking chair,?Thinking of one who cannot be there,?Breathing a hope that is half a prayer;?Night and day, night and day.
Here in my cell I must sit alone,?Clothed in grey.?Bars of iron and walls of stone?Bid me stay.?What of the world with its pomp and show??Baubles of nothing! This I know:?Deep in my heart I miss them so?Night and day, night and day.
TO MY LITTLE SON
I cannot lose the thought of you?It haunts me like a little song,?It blends with all I see or do?Each day, the whole day long.
The train, the lights, the engine's throb,?And that one stinging memory:?Your brave smile broken with a sob,?Your face pressed close to me.
Lips trembling far too much to speak;?The arms that would not come undone;?The kiss so salty on your cheek;?The long, long trip begun.
I could not miss you more it seemed,?But now I don't know what to say.?It's harder than I ever dreamed?With you so far away.
ESCAPED!
(The boiler house whistle is blown "wildcat" when?a prisoner makes a "getaway")
A man has fled. . . .! We clutch the bars and wait;?The corridors are empty, tense and still;?A silver mist has dimmed the distant hill;?The guards have gathered at the prison gate.?Then suddenly the "wildcat" blares its hate?Like some mad Moloch screaming for the kill,?Shattering the air with terror loud and shrill,?The dim, grey walls become articulate.
Freedom, you say? Behold her altar here!?In those far cities men can only find?A vaster prison and a redder hell,?O'ershadowed by new wings of greater fear.?Brave fool, for such a world to leave behind?The iron sanctuary of a cell!
RETROSPECT
The wall-girt distance undulates with heat;?The buildings crouch in terror of the sun;?Steel bars and stones, heat-tortured ton on ton,?On which the noon's remorseless hammers beat.?Alone I trudge the wide red-cobbled street:?How long before this evil dream is done . . .??These strange mad stones I know them every one,?Worn with the tread of oh, how many feet!
And yet it seems that I have seen it all?Before . . . I know not when . . . but there should be?Blunt buildings near a cliff, as I recall;?Bare rocks--a burning white--a gnarled dark tree . . .?And looming clear above a sentried wall?The foam-laced splendor of a warm blue sea . . .
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