there ran The vampire blood from bitter torture nursed; Along thy streets there flashed the lightning-burst, “Delivered!” flaming on from eye to eye, Though lips said “killed,” and all thy gateways hearsed In lying black, made mourning mockery. Blessed art thou! From thee went forth the cry, “Vengeance yet loves, Renunciation hates, And justice smites: the torturer shall die;” Across his path the steel-nerved slayer waits “And both shall burn together,”—one in light Of unconsuming hell and reddened night; And one with feet on hell and brow dawn-rayed, pure white.
The Road Builders
(“Who built the beautiful roads?” queried a friend of the present order, as we walked one day along the macadamised driveway of Fairmount Park.)
I saw them toiling in the blistering sun, Their dull, dark faces leaning toward the stone, Their knotted fingers grasping the rude tools, Their rounded shoulders narrowing in their chest, The sweat drops dripping in great painful beads. I saw one fall, his forehead on the rock, The helpless hand still clutching at the spade, The slack mouth full of earth.
And he was dead. His comrades gently turned his face, until The fierce sun glittered hard upon his eyes, Wide open, staring at the cruel sky. The blood yet ran upon the jagged stone; But it was ended. He was quite, quite dead: Driven to death beneath the burning sun, Driven to death upon the road he built.
He was no “hero,” he; a poor, black man, Taking “the will of God” and asking naught; Think of him thus, when next your horse’s feet Strike out the flint spark from the gleaming road; Think that for this, this common thing, The Road, A human creature died; ’tis a blood gift, To an o’erreaching world that does not thank. Ignorant, mean and soulless was he? Well— Still human; and you drive upon his corpse.
Angiolillo
We are the souls that crept and cried in the days when they tortured men; His was the spirit that walked erect, and met the beast in its den.
Ours are the eyes that were dim with tears for the thing they shrunk to see; His was the glance that was crystal keen with the light that makes men free.
Ours are the hands that were wrung in pain, in helpless pain and shame; His was the resolute hand that struck, steady and keen to its aim.
Ours are the lips that quivered with rage, that cursed and prayed in a breath: His was the mouth that opened but once to speak from the throat of Death.
“Assassin, Assassin!” the World cries out, with a shake of its dotard head; “Germinal!” rings back the grave where lies the Dead that is not dead.
“Germinal, Germinal,” sings the Wind that is driving before the Storm; “Few are the drops that have fallen yet—scattered, but red and warm.”
“Germinal, Germinal,” sing the Fields, where furrows of men are plowed; “Ye shall gather a harvest over-rich, when the ear at the full is bowed.”
Springing, springing, at every breath, the Word of invincible strife, The word of the Dead, that is calling loud down the battle ranks of Life!
For these are the Dead that live, though the earth upon them lie: But the doers of deeds of the Night of the Dead, they are the Live that die.
Ave et Vale
Comrades, what matter the watch-night tells That a New Year comes or goes? What to us are the crashing bells That clang out the Century’s close?
What to us is the gala dress? The whirl of the dancing feet? The glitter and blare in the laughing press, And din of the merry street?
Do we not know that our brothers die In the cold and the dark to-night? Shelterless faces turned toward the sky Will not see the New Year’s light!
Wandering children, lonely, lost, Drift away on the human sea, While the price of their lives in a glass is tossed And drunk in a revelry!
Ah, know we not in their feasting halls Where the loud laugh echoes again, That brick and stone in the mortared walls Are the bones of murdered men?
Slowly murdered! By day and day, The beauty and strength are reft, Till the Man is sapped and sucked away, And a Human Rind is left!
A Human Rind, with old, thin hair, And old, thin voice to pray For alms in the bitter winter air— A knife at his heart alway.
And the pure in heart are impure in flesh For the cost of a little food: Lo, when the Gleaner of Time shall thresh, Let these be accounted good.
For these are they who in bitter blame Eat the bread whose salt is sin; Whose bosoms are burned with the scarlet shame, Till their hearts are seared within.
The cowardly jests of a hundred years Will be thrown where they pass to-night, Too callous for hate, and too dry for tears, The saddest of human blight.
Do we forget them, these broken ones, That our watch to-night is set? Nay, we smile in the face of the year that comes Because we do not forget.
We do not forget the tramp on the track, Thrust out in the wind-swept waste, The curses of Man upon his back, And the curse of God in his face.
The stare in the eyes of the buried man Face down in the fallen mine; The despair of the child whose bare feet ran To tread out the rich man’s wine;
The solemn light in the dying gaze Of the babe at the empty breast, The wax accusation, the sombre glaze Of its frozen and rigid rest;
They are all in the smile that we turn to the east To welcome the Century’s dawn; They are all in our greeting to Night’s high priest, As we bid the Old Year begone.
Begone and have done, and go down and be dead Deep drowned in your sea of tears! We smile as you die, for we wait the red Morn-gleam of a hundred-years
That shall see the end of the age-old wrong— The reapers that have not sown— The reapers of men with their sickles strong Who gather, but have not strown.
For the earth shall be his and the fruits thereof And to him