Bars and Shadows | Page 5

themselves that they are constrained to hold in prison this dreamer and singer of the new social order.
Chaplin, in prison, like Debs in prison, is doing his work. He is resisting the encroachments of those jail demons--hate, bitterness, revenge; he is holding his mind on the goal--a newer, better social order; he is keeping his vision of nature, of humanity, of?brotherhood, of courage, of love, of beauty,--clear and bright. Chaplin, the man, is in jail; but Chaplin the poet and singer is roaming wherever books go; wherever papers are read, and wherever comrades repeat verses to one another in the flickering light of the evening fire.
SCOTT NEARING.
MOURN NOT THE DEAD
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie--?Dust unto dust--?The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die?As all men must;
Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell--?Too strong to strive--?Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,?Buried alive;
But rather mourn the apathetic throng--?The cowed and the meek--?Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong?And dare not speak!
TAPS
The day is ended! Ghostly shadows creep?Along each dim-lit wall and corridor.?The bugle sounds as from some faery shore?Silvered with sadness, somnolent and deep.?Darkness and bars . . . God! shall we curse or weep??Somewhere a pipe is tapped upon the floor;?A guard slams shut the heavy iron door;?The day is ended--go to sleep--to sleep.
Three times it blows--weird lullaby of doom--?And then to dream while fecund Night gives birth?To other days like this day that is done. .?But Morning . . . does it live beyond the gloom--?This deep black pall that hangs above the earth--?He fears the dark who dares to doubt the sun!
NIGHT IN THE CELL HOUSE
Tier over tier they rise to dizzy height--?The cells of men who know the world no more.?Silence intense from ceiling to the floor;?While through the window gleams a lone blue light?Which stabs the dark immensity of night.?Felt shod and ghostly like a shade of yore,?The guard comes shuffling down the corridor;?His key-ring jingles . . . and he glides from sight.
Oh, to forget the prison and its scars,?And face the breeze where ocean meets the land;?To watch the foam-crests dance with silver stars,?While long green waves come tumbling on the sand . . .?My brow is hot against the icy bars;?There is the smell of iron on my hand.
PRISON SHADOWS
Like grey-winged phantoms out of sullen skies?They flood our cells and seem to fashion there?I know not what dim landscapes of despair;?All day we feel them lurking in our eyes.?At night they fall like crosses, sombre-wise,?Upon the shameful uniforms we wear,?Upon the brow, the face, the hand, the hair;?And on each heart their shadow always lies.
O heart of mine, why throb with futile rage?And beat and beat against these hopeless bars??For, though you break in life's last deadly swoon,?You cannot pierce beyond this iron cage?To see the pulsing splendor of the stars?Or feel the blue-green magic of the moon!
PRISON REVEILLE
Out through the iron doorway, bolted strong,?I see the night guard's shadow on the wall.?The bugle sounds its thin, white silver call,?Awake! awake! O world-forgotten throng!?And then the sudden clanging of the gong,?And . . . silence . . . aching silence . . . over all;?While through the windows, steel-barred, stern and tall,?Pale daylight greets us like a plaintive song.
Somewhere the dawn breaks laughing o'er the sea?To splash with gold the cities' domes and towers,?And countless men seek visions wide and free,?In that alluring world that is not ours;?But no one there could prize as much as we?The open road, the smell of grass and flowers.
PRISON NOCTURNE
Outside the storm is swishing to and fro;?The wet wind hums its colorless refrain;?Against the walls and dripping bars, the rain?Beats with a rhythm like a song of woe;?Dimmed by the lightning's ever-fitful glow?The purple arc-lamps blur each streaming pane;?The thunder rumbles at the distant plain,?The cells are hushed and silent, row on row.
Fall, fruitful drops, upon the parching earth,?Fall, and revive the living sap of spring;?Blossom the fields with wonder once again!?And, in all hearts, awaken to new birth?Those visions and endeavors that will bring?A fresh, sweet morning to the world of men!
THE WARRIOR WIND
Once more the wind leaps from the sullen land?With his old battle-cry.?A tree bends darkly where the wall looms high;?Its tortured branches, like a grisly hand,?Clutch at the sky.
Grey towers rise from gloom and underneath--?Black-barred and strong--?The snarling windows guard their ancient wrong;?But the mad wind shakes them, hissing through his teeth?A battle song.
O bitter is the challenge that he flings?At bars and bolts and keys.?Torn with the cries of vanished centuries?And curses hurled at long-forgotten kings?Beyond dim seas.
The wind alone, of all the gods of old,?Men could not chain.?O wild wind, brother to my wrath and pain,?Like you, within a restless heart I hold?A hurricane.
The wind has known the dungeons of the past?Knows