Good friend, if any judge deserve your blame
Have you no courage, or has he no name?
Upon his method will you wreak your wrath,
Himself all unmolested in his path?
Fall to! fall to!—your club no longer draw
To beat the air or flail a man of straw.
Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall
Who cuffed the offender’s shadow on a wall.
Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal—
Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel!
We know that judges are corrupt. We know
That crimes are lively and that laws are slow.
We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay;
That priests and preachers are but birds of pray;
That merchants cheat and journalists for gold
Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold.
’Tis all familiar as the simple lore
That two policemen and two thieves make four.
But since, while some are wicked some are good,
(As trees may differ though they all are wood)
Names, here and there, to show whose head is hit,
The bad would sentence and the good acquit.
In sparing everybody none you spare:
Rebukes most personal are least unfair.
To fire at random if you still prefer,
And swear at Dog but never kick a cur,
Permit me yet one ultimate appeal
To something that you understand and feel:
Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade—
You might be read if you would learn your trade.
Good brother cynics (you have doubtless guessed
Not one of you but all are here addressed)
Remember this: the shaft that seeks a heart
Draws all eyes after it; an idle dart
Shot at some shadow flutters o’er the green,
Its flight unheeded and its fall unseen.
“Liars for witnesses; for lawyers brutes
Willing to lose their souls to win their suits;
Cowards for jurors, and for judge a clown
Who ne’er took up the law, yet lays it down;
Justice denied, authority abused,
And the one blameless person the accused—
Thy courts, my country, all these dreadful years,
Move fools to laughter and the wise to tears.”
So moaned an alien from beyond the foam.
Come here, my lad, I think you’ll feel at home.
If the coal strike is not settled satisfactorily I shall lead the wives of the miners in a march on Washington.
Mother Jones
“What is this I see, what is this I see
In this year of our Lord 3003?
What ruins are spread in confusion wide
Over hill and plain by Potomac’s side?”
“These, traveler, these are the leveled stones
Attesting the prowess of Mother Jones.”
“O plowman, I never in history grew
To the high attainments of Smith Carew,
Whose noble book, ‘The Decline and Fall
Of America,’ holds the respect of all.
Of Mother Jones I often have heard,
But thought—pray pardon if I have erred—
That the ancient lady became renowned
By embroidering cats on a velvet ground.”
“Your error is wide, remote, extreme:
Not the needle’s shine, but the sabre’s gleam
Delighted of old her heroic soul
And made her unloved of the Lords of Coal.
In that distant day when the miner ‘rose,’
And to spite his countenance severed his nose,
And owners permitted each mine of the trust
To fill up with water to lay his dust,
She marshaled the women, with sabre and gun,
And marched with banners on Washington.”
“I see, I see in these ruins gray
Through which you are urging your plowshare gay
The work of their hands, slender and white,
That plied the pick and the crowbar bright.”
“The cannon, my friend—but no harm was done,
For before the city was overrun
By the warrior-dames of that rebel rout
The politicians had cleaned it out,
And the stones that about the plain they spread
Were served to the poor when they asked for bread.”
“O affable plowman, I’d fain admire
Your tale, but, alas, I’m myself a liar!
Besides, I’ve a better one, which, mayhap,
You’d like to be hearing.”
“Giddap, giddap!”
When I was young and full of faith
And other fads that youngsters cherish
A cry rose as of one that saith
With emphasis: “Help or I perish!”
’Twas heard in all the land, and men
The sound were each to each repeating.
It made my heart beat faster then
Than any heart can now be beating.
For the world is old and the world is gray—
Grown prudent and, I think, more witty.
She’s cut her wisdom teeth, they say,
And doesn’t now go in for Pity.
Besides, the melancholy cry
Was that of one, ’tis now conceded,
Whose plight no one beneath the sky
Felt half so poignantly as he did.
Moreover, he was black. And yet
That sentimental generation
With an austere compassion set
Its face and faith to the occasion.
Then there were hate and strife to spare,
And various hard knocks a-plenty;
And I (’twas more than my true share,
I must confess) took five-and-twenty.
That all is over now—the reign
Of love and trade stills all dissensions,
And the clear heavens arch again
Above a land of peace and pensions.
The black chap—at the last we gave
Him everything that he had cried for,
Though many white chaps in the grave
’Twould puzzle to say what they died for.
I hope he’s better off—I trust
That his society and his master’s
Are worth the price we paid, and must
Continue paying, in disasters;
But sometimes doubts press thronging round
(’Tis mostly when my hurts are aching)
If war for Union was a sound
And profitable undertaking.
’Tis said they mean to take away
The Negro’s vote for he’s unlettered.
’Tis true he sits in darkness day
And night, as formerly, when fettered;
But pray observe—howe’er he vote
To whatsoever party turning,
He’ll be with gentlemen of note
And wealth and consequence and learning.
With saints and sages on each side,
How could a fool through lack of knowledge,
Vote wrong? If learning is no guide
Why ought one to have been in college?
O Son of Day, O Son of Night!
What are your preferences made of?
I know not which of you is right,
Nor which to be the more afraid of.
The world is old and the world is bad,
And creaks and grinds upon its axis;
And man’s an ape and the gods are mad!—
There’s nothing sure, not even our taxes.
No mortal man can Truth restore,
Or say where she is to be sought for.
I know what uniform I wore—
O, that I knew which side
