Bars and Shadows | Page 8

thorns upon the cross of death?
Is morning here . . .? Then speak that
we may know!
The sky seems lighter but we are not sure.
Is
morning here . . .? The whole world holds its breath
To hear the
crimson Gallic rooster crow!
VILLANELLE
(Torquato Tasso from his cell at Ste. Anne, 1548)
Her beauty haunts me everywhere--
A lone lark singing as it flies--

Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.
Amber and gold meet in her hair,
Dark pools and starlight in her eyes;

Her beauty haunts me everywhere.
Slim body, petal soft and fair,
Cool lips, cool, cool as evening skies--

Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.
Pale fingers delicate and rare,
To lull and lure caressing-wise;
Her
beauty haunts me everywhere.

Here in my dungeon dim and bare
The last frail not of music dies--

Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.
My heart? I steeled it not to care. . . .
But God! her love is paradise!

Her beauty haunts me everywhere,
O sweet, sweet, sweet beyond
compare!
WESLEY EVEREST
(Mutilated and murdered at Centralia, Washington,
November 11th,
1919, by a mob of "respectable"
businessmen.)
Torn and defiant as a wind-lashed reed,
Wounded he faced you as he
stood at bay;
You dared not lynch him in the light of day,
But on
your dungeon stones you let him bleed;
Night came . . . and you black
vigilants of Greed . . .
Like human wolves, seized hard upon your
prey,
Tortured and killed . . . and, silent slunk away
Without one
qualm of horror at the deed.
Once . . . long ago . . . do you remember how
You hailed Him king
for soldiers to deride--
You placed a scroll above His bleeding brow

And spat upon Him, scourged Him, crucified . . .?
A rebel unto Caesar--then as now
Alone, thorn-crowned, a spear
wound in his side!
THE INDUSTRIAL HERETICS
They say we are revolters--that we stirred
The workers of all nations
to rebel--
And that we would not compromise with Hell,
But
damned it with our every deed and word.
They feared us as we faced
them undeterred,
And gave us each a coffin of a cell
In this steel
cave where living corpses dwell--
Hate-throttled here that we might
not be heard.
We are those fools too stubborn-willed to bend
Our necks to Wrong

and parley and discuss.
Today we face the awful test of fire--
The
prison, gallows, cross--but in the end
Your sons will call your
children after us
And name their dogs from men you now admire!
BLOOD AND WINE
(A certain little renegade of the Revolution chants a
hymn of praise to
his erstwhile enemy.)
Behold! The helots of the land
Are cowed beneath thy iron fist;

They are too dumb to understand--
Too tame and spineless to resist.
Victorious one! Against thy gains
These chattels cannot, dare not rise;

Stifle the thought within their brains
And rule . . . with bayonets
and lies.
So may thy sons, with greed uncurbed,
Their children's children rule
again;
Aye, rule with iron, undisturbed,
The all-prolific sons of
men.
What matters that ten million died
To give thy lust a dwelling place?

Does not thy Terror set aside
The ancient freedom of the race?
What matters that the peasant's plow
Bites at a soil baptised with red?

Are not thy bloody dollars now
More myriad than the myriad
dead?
That in charred cities, wan with pain,
War-desolated mothers live,

While lips of babies tug in vain
At breasts that have no milk to give?
Or that beneath thy battered walls,
Cursed with the eloquence of hell,

Black Want to red Rebellion calls . . .?
Heed not, I tell thee all is
well!
Heed not! Have vine-clad maidens sing
And serve thee scented wine
and gore;
Laugh! Glut thyself to vomiting,
And hiccough,

screaming still for more.
What of the Men against the gate,
Black-massed and sullen, gaunt
and lean . . .
Like thee they crave one thing to hate.
Be glad . . . and
whet thy guillotine!
THE RED GUARD
Sons of the dawn! No more shall you enslave
Nor lull them with your
honied lies to sleep,
Nor lead them on like herds of human sheep,

To hopeless slaughter for the loot you crave.
For now upon you,
wave on mighty wave,
The iron-stern battalions rise and leap
To
extirpate your breed and bury deep
And sow with salt the unlamented
grave!
Accursed Monster -- nightmare of the years--
Pause but a moment ere
you pass away!
Pause and behold the earth made clean and pure--

Our earth, that you have drenched with blood and tears--
Then greet
the crimson usurer of Day,--
The mighty Proletarian Dictature!
THE RED FEAST
Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife
And spill each
others guts upon the field;
Serve unto death the men you served in
life
So that their wide dominions may not yield.
Stand by the flag--the lie that still allures;
Lay down your lives for
land you do not own,
And give unto a war that is not yours
Your
gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone.
But whether it be yours to fall or kill
You must not pause to question
why nor where.
You see the tiny crosses on that