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\title{The Ghetto and Other Poems}
\date{}
\author{Lola Ridge}
\subtitle{}
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\begin{document}
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{\usekomafont{title}{\huge The Ghetto and Other Poems\par}}%
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\chapter{To the American People}
\begin{verse}
Will you feast with me, American People? \\{}
But what have I that shall seem good to you!
On my board are bitter apples \\{}
And honey served on thorns, \\{}
And in my flagons fluid iron, \\{}
Hot from the crucibles.
How should such fare entice you!
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Ghetto}
\section{I}
\begin{verse}
Cool, inaccessible air \\{}
Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights, \\{}
But no breath stirs the heat \\{}
Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto \\{}
And most on Hester street\dots{}
The heat\dots{} \\{}
Nosing in the body’s overflow, \\{}
Like a beast pressing its great steaming belly close, \\{}
Covering all avenues of air\dots{}
The heat in Hester street, \\{}
Heaped like a dray \\{}
With the garbage of the world.
Bodies dangle from the fire escapes \\{}
Or sprawl over the stoops\dots{} \\{}
Upturned faces glimmer pallidly— \\{}
Herring-yellow faces, spotted as with a mold, \\{}
And moist faces of girls \\{}
Like dank white lilies, \\{}
And infants’ faces with open parched mouths that suck at the air \\{}
~~~~~as at empty teats.
Young women pass in groups, \\{}
Converging to the forums and meeting halls, \\{}
Surging indomitable, slow \\{}
Through the gross underbrush of heat. \\{}
Their heads are uncovered to the stars, \\{}
And they call to the young men and to one another \\{}
With a free camaraderie. \\{}
Only their eyes are ancient and alone\dots{}
The street crawls undulant, \\{}
Like a river addled \\{}
With its hot tide of flesh \\{}
That ever thickens. \\{}
Heavy surges of flesh \\{}
Break over the pavements, \\{}
Clavering like a surf— \\{}
Flesh of this abiding \\{}
Brood of those ancient mothers who saw the dawn break over Egypt\dots{} \\{}
And turned their cakes upon the dry hot stones \\{}
And went on \\{}
Till the gold of the Egyptians fell down off their arms\dots{} \\{}
Fasting and athirst\dots{} \\{}
And yet on\dots{}
Did they vision—with those eyes darkly clear, \\{}
That looked the sun in the face and were not blinded— \\{}
Across the centuries \\{}
The march of their enduring flesh? \\{}
Did they hear— \\{}
Under the molten silence \\{}
Of the desert like a stopped wheel— \\{}
(And the scorpions tick-ticking on the sand\dots{}) \\{}
The infinite procession of those feet?
\end{verse}
\section{II}
\begin{verse}
I room at Sodos’—in the little green room that was Bennie’s— \\{}
With Sadie \\{}
And her old father and her mother, \\{}
Who is not so old and wears her own hair.
Old Sodos no longer makes saddles. \\{}
He has forgotten how. \\{}
He has forgotten most things—even Bennie who stays away \\{}
~~~~~and sends wine on holidays— \\{}
And he does not like Sadie’s mother \\{}
Who hides God’s candles, \\{}
Nor Sadie \\{}
Whose young pagan breath puts out the light— \\{}
That should burn always, \\{}
Like Aaron’s before the Lord.
Time spins like a crazy dial in his brain, \\{}
And night by night \\{}
I see the love-gesture of his arm \\{}
In its green-greasy coat-sleeve \\{}
Circling the Book, \\{}
And the candles gleaming starkly \\{}
On the blotched-paper whiteness of his face, \\{}
Like a miswritten psalm\dots{} \\{}
Night by night \\{}
I hear his lifted praise, \\{}
Like a broken whinnying \\{}
Before the Lord’s shut gate.
Sadie dresses in black. \\{}
She has black-wet hair full of cold lights \\{}
And a fine-drawn face, too white. \\{}
All day the power machines \\{}
Drone in her ears\dots{} \\{}
All day the fine dust flies \\{}
Till throats are parched and itch \\{}
And the heat—like a kept corpse— \\{}
Fouls to the last corner.
Then—when needles move more slowly on the cloth \\{}
And sweaty fingers slacken \\{}
And hair falls in damp wisps over the eyes— \\{}
Sped by some power within, \\{}
Sadie quivers like a rod\dots{} \\{}
A thin black piston flying, \\{}
One with her machine.
She—who stabs the piece-work with her bitter eye \\{}
And bids the girls: “Slow down— \\{}
You’ll have him cutting us again!” \\{}
She—fiery static atom, \\{}
Held in place by the fierce pressure all about— \\{}
Speeds up the driven wheels \\{}
And biting steel—that twice \\{}
Has nipped her to the bone.
Nights, she reads \\{}
Those books that have most unset thought, \\{}
New-poured and malleable, \\{}
To which her thought \\{}
Leaps fusing at white heat, \\{}
Or spits her fire out in some dim manger of a hall, \\{}
Or at a protest meeting on the Square, \\{}
Her lit eyes kindling the mob\dots{} \\{}
Or dances madly at a festival. \\{}
Each dawn finds her a little whiter, \\{}
Though up and keyed to the long day, \\{}
Alert, yet weary\dots{} like a bird \\{}
That all night long has beat about a light.
The Gentile lover, that she charms and shrews, \\{}
Is one more pebble in the pack \\{}
For Sadie’s mother, \\{}
Who greets him with her narrowed eyes \\{}
That hold some welcome back. \\{}
“What’s to be done?” she’ll say, \\{}
“When Sadie wants she takes\dots{} \\{}
Better than Bennie with his Christian woman\dots{} \\{}
A man is not so like, \\{}
If they should fight, \\{}
To call her Jew\dots{}”
Yet when she lies in bed \\{}
And the soft babble of their talk comes to her \\{}
And the silences\dots{} \\{}
I know she never sleeps \\{}
Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall \\{}
Edges through her transom \\{}
And she hears his foot on the first stairs.
Sarah and Anna live on the floor above. \\{}
Sarah is swarthy and ill-dressed. \\{}
Life for her has no ritual. \\{}
She would break an ideal like an egg for the winged thing at the core. \\{}
Her mind is hard and brilliant and cutting like an acetylene torch. \\{}
If any impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame. \\{}
It is droll that she should work in a pants factory. \\{}
—Yet where else\dots{} tousled and collar awry at her olive throat. \\{}
Besides her hands are unkempt. \\{}
With English\dots{} and everything\dots{} there is so little time. \\{}
She reads without bias— \\{}
Doubting clamorously— \\{}
Psychology, plays, science, philosophies— \\{}
Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed\dots{} \\{}
—And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come— \\{}
~~~~~what amazing blossomings.
Anna is different. \\{}
One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads \\{}
~~~~~to look at her. \\{}
She has the appeal of a folk-song \\{}
And her cheap clothes are always in rhythm. \\{}
When the strike was on she gave half her pay. \\{}
She would give anything—save the praise that is hers \\{}
And the love of her lyric body.
But Sarah’s desire covets nothing apart. \\{}
She would share all things\dots{} \\{}
Even her lover.
\end{verse}
\section{III}
\begin{verse}
The sturdy Ghetto children \\{}
March by the parade, \\{}
Waving their toy flags, \\{}
Prancing to the bugles— \\{}
Lusty, unafraid\dots{} \\{}
Shaking little fire sticks \\{}
At the night— \\{}
The old blinking night— \\{}
Swerving out of the way, \\{}
Wrapped in her darkness like a shawl.
But a small girl \\{}
Cowers apart. \\{}
Her braided head, \\{}
Shiny as a black-bird’s \\{}
In the gleam of the torch-light, \\{}
Is poised as for flight. \\{}
Her eyes have the glow \\{}
Of darkened lights.
She stammers in Yiddish, \\{}
But I do not understand, \\{}
And there flits across her face \\{}
A shadow \\{}
As of a drawn blind. \\{}
I give her an orange, \\{}
Large and golden, \\{}
And she looks at it blankly. \\{}
I take her little cold hand and try to draw her to me, \\{}
But she is stiff\dots{} \\{}
Like a doll\dots{}
Suddenly she darts through the crowd \\{}
Like a little white panic \\{}
Blown along the night— \\{}
Away from the terror of oncoming feet\dots{} \\{}
And drums rattling like curses in red roaring mouths\dots{} \\{}
And torches spluttering silver fire \\{}
And lights that nose out hiding-places\dots{} \\{}
To the night— \\{}
Squatting like a hunchback \\{}
Under the curved stoop— \\{}
The old mammy-night \\{}
That has outlived beauty and knows the ways of fear— \\{}
The night—wide-opening crooked and comforting arms, \\{}
Hiding her as in a voluminous skirt.
The sturdy Ghetto children \\{}
March by the parade, \\{}
Waving their toy flags, \\{}
Prancing to the bugles, \\{}
Lusty, unafraid. \\{}
But I see a white frock \\{}
And eyes like hooded lights \\{}
Out of the shadow of pogroms \\{}
Watching\dots{} watching\dots{}
\end{verse}
\section{IV}
\begin{verse}
Calicoes and furs, \\{}
Pocket-books and scarfs, \\{}
Razor strops and knives \\{}
(Patterns in check\dots{})
Olive hands and russet head, \\{}
Pickles red and coppery, \\{}
Green pickles, brown pickles, \\{}
(Patterns in tapestry\dots{})
Coral beads, blue beads, \\{}
Beads of pearl and amber, \\{}
Gewgaws, beauty pins— \\{}
Bijoutry for chits— \\{}
Darting rays of violet, \\{}
Amethyst and jade\dots{} \\{}
All the colors out to play, \\{}
Jumbled iridescently\dots{} \\{}
(Patterns in stained glass \\{}
Shivered into bits!)
Nooses of gay ribbon \\{}
Tugging at one’s sleeve, \\{}
Dainty little garters \\{}
Hanging out their sign\dots{} \\{}
Here a pout of frilly things— \\{}
There a sonsy feather\dots{} \\{}
(White beards, black beards \\{}
Like knots in the weave\dots{})
And ah, the little babies— \\{}
Shiny black-eyed babies— \\{}
(Half a million pink toes \\{}
Wriggling altogether.) \\{}
Baskets full of babies \\{}
Like grapes on a vine.
Mothers waddling in and out, \\{}
Making all things right— \\{}
Picking up the slipped threads \\{}
In Grand street at night— \\{}
Grand street like a great bazaar, \\{}
Crowded like a float, \\{}
Bulging like a crazy quilt \\{}
Stretched on a line.
But nearer seen \\{}
This litter of the East \\{}
Takes on a garbled majesty.
The herded stalls \\{}
In dissolute array\dots{} \\{}
The glitter and the jumbled finery \\{}
And strangely juxtaposed \\{}
Cans, paper, rags \\{}
And colors decomposing, \\{}
Faded like old hair, \\{}
With flashes of barbaric hues \\{}
And eyes of mystery\dots{} \\{}
Flung \\{}
Like an ancient tapestry of motley weave \\{}
Upon the open wall of this new land.
Here, a tawny-headed girl\dots{} \\{}
Lemons in a greenish broth \\{}
And a huge earthen bowl \\{}
By a bronzed merchant \\{}
With a tall black lamb’s wool cap upon his head\dots{} \\{}
He has no glance for her. \\{}
His thrifty eyes \\{}
Bend—glittering, intent \\{}
Their hoarded looks \\{}
Upon his merchandise, \\{}
As though it were some splendid cloth \\{}
Or sumptuous raiment \\{}
Stitched in gold and red\dots{}
He seldom talks \\{}
Save of the goods he spreads— \\{}
The meager cotton with its dismal flower— \\{}
But with his skinny hands \\{}
That hover like two hawks \\{}
Above some luscious meat, \\{}
He fingers lovingly each calico, \\{}
As though it were a gorgeous shawl, \\{}
Or costly vesture \\{}
Wrought in silken thread, \\{}
Or strange bright carpet \\{}
Made for sandaled feet\dots{}
Here an old grey scholar stands. \\{}
His brooding eyes— \\{}
That hold long vistas without end \\{}
Of caravans and trees and roads, \\{}
And cities dwindling in remembrance— \\{}
Bend mostly on his tapes and thread.
What if they tweak his beard— \\{}
These raw young seed of Israel \\{}
Who have no backward vision in their eyes— \\{}
And mock him as he sways \\{}
Above the sunken arches of his feet— \\{}
They find no peg to hang their taunts upon. \\{}
His soul is like a rock \\{}
That bears a front worn smooth \\{}
By the coarse friction of the sea, \\{}
And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace.
What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape, \\{}
Backed by a nickel star \\{}
Does prod him on, \\{}
Taking his proud patience for humility\dots{} \\{}
All gutters are as one \\{}
To that old race that has been thrust \\{}
From off the curbstones of the world\dots{} \\{}
And he smiles with the pale irony \\{}
Of one who holds \\{}
The wisdom of the Talmud stored away \\{}
In his mind’s lavender.
But this young trader, \\{}
Born to trade as to a caul, \\{}
Peddles the notions of the hour. \\{}
The gestures of the craft are his \\{}
And all the lore \\{}
As when to hold, withdraw, persuade, advance\dots{} \\{}
And be it gum or flags, \\{}
Or clean-all or the newest thing in tags, \\{}
Demand goes to him as the bee to flower. \\{}
And he—appraising \\{}
All who come and go \\{}
With his amazing \\{}
Slight-of-mind and glance \\{}
And nimble thought \\{}
And nature balanced like the scales at nought— \\{}
Looks Westward where the trade-lights glow, \\{}
And sees his vision rise— \\{}
A tape-ruled vision, \\{}
Circumscribed in stone— \\{}
Some fifty stories to the skies.
\end{verse}
\section{V}
\begin{verse}
As I sit in my little fifth-floor room— \\{}
Bare, \\{}
Save for bed and chair, \\{}
And coppery stains \\{}
Left by seeping rains \\{}
On the low ceiling \\{}
And green plaster walls, \\{}
Where when night falls \\{}
Golden lady-bugs \\{}
Come out of their holes, \\{}
And roaches, sepia-brown, consort\dots{} \\{}
I hear bells pealing \\{}
Out of the gray church at Rutgers street, \\{}
Holding its high-flung cross above the Ghetto, \\{}
And, one floor down across the court, \\{}
The parrot screaming: \\{}
Vorwärts\dots{} Vorwärts\dots{}
The parrot frowsy-white, \\{}
Everlastingly swinging \\{}
On its iron bar.
A little old woman, \\{}
With a wig of smooth black hair \\{}
Gummed about her shrunken brows, \\{}
Comes sometimes on the fire escape. \\{}
An old stooped mother, \\{}
The left shoulder low \\{}
With that uneven droopiness that women know \\{}
Who have suckled many young\dots{} \\{}
Yet I have seen no other than the parrot there.
I watch her mornings as she shakes her rugs \\{}
Feebly, with futile reach \\{}
And fingers without clutch. \\{}
Her thews are slack \\{}
And curved the ruined back \\{}
And flesh empurpled like old meat, \\{}
Yet each conspires \\{}
To feed those guttering fires \\{}
With which her eyes are quick.
On Friday nights \\{}
Her candles signal \\{}
Infinite fine rays \\{}
To other windows, \\{}
Coupling other lights, \\{}
Linking the tenements \\{}
Like an endless prayer.
She seems less lonely than the bird \\{}
That day by day about the dismal house \\{}
Screams out his frenzied word\dots{} \\{}
That night by night— \\{}
If a dog yelps \\{}
Or a cat yawls \\{}
Or a sick child whines, \\{}
Or a door screaks on its hinges, \\{}
Or a man and woman fight— \\{}
Sends his cry above the huddled roofs: \\{}
Vorwärts\dots{} Vorwärts\dots{}
\end{verse}
\section{VI}
\begin{verse}
In this dingy cafe \\{}
The old men sit muffled in woollens. \\{}
Everything is faded, shabby, colorless, old\dots{} \\{}
The chairs, loose-jointed, \\{}
Creaking like old bones— \\{}
The tables, the waiters, the walls, \\{}
Whose mottled plaster \\{}
Blends in one tone with the old flesh.
Young life and young thought are alike barred, \\{}
And no unheralded noises jolt old nerves, \\{}
And old wheezy breaths \\{}
Pass around old thoughts, dry as snuff, \\{}
And there is no divergence and no friction \\{}
Because life is flattened and ground as by many mills.
And it is here the Committee— \\{}
Sweet-breathed and smooth of skin \\{}
And supple of spine and knee, \\{}
With shining unpouched eyes \\{}
And the blood, high-powered, \\{}
Leaping in flexible arteries— \\{}
The insolent, young, enthusiastic, undiscriminating Committee, \\{}
Who would placard tombstones \\{}
And scatter leaflets even in graves, \\{}
Comes trampling with sacrilegious feet!
The old men turn stiffly, \\{}
Mumbling to each other. \\{}
They are gentle and torpid and busy with eating. \\{}
But one lifts a face of clayish pallor, \\{}
There is a dull fury in his eyes, like little rusty grates. \\{}
He rises slowly, \\{}
Trembling in his many swathings like an awakened mummy, \\{}
Ridiculous yet terrible. \\{}
—And the Committee flings him a waste glance, \\{}
Dropping a leaflet by his plate.
A lone fire flickers in the dusty eyes. \\{}
The lips chant inaudibly. \\{}
The warped shrunken body straightens like a tree. \\{}
And he curses\dots{} \\{}
With uplifted arms and perished fingers, \\{}
Claw-like, clutching\dots{} \\{}
So centuries ago \\{}
The old men cursed Acosta, \\{}
When they, prophetic, heard upon their sepulchres \\{}
Those feet that may not halt nor turn aside for ancient things.
\end{verse}
\section{VII}
\begin{verse}
Here in this room, bare like a barn, \\{}
Egos gesture one to the other— \\{}
Naked, unformed, unwinged \\{}
Egos out of the shell, \\{}
Examining, searching, devouring— \\{}
Avid alike for the flower or the dung\dots{} \\{}
(Having no dainty antennae for the touch and withdrawal— \\{}
Only the open maw\dots{})
Egos cawing, \\{}
Expanding in the mean egg\dots{} \\{}
Little squat tailors with unkempt faces, \\{}
Pale as lard, \\{}
Fur-makers, factory-hands, shop-workers, \\{}
News-boys with battling eyes \\{}
And bodies yet vibrant with the momentum of long runs, \\{}
Here and there a woman\dots{}
Words, words, words, \\{}
Pattering like hail, \\{}
Like hail falling without aim\dots{} \\{}
Egos rampant, \\{}
Screaming each other down. \\{}
One motions perpetually, \\{}
Waving arms like overgrowths. \\{}
He has burning eyes and a cough \\{}
And a thin voice piping \\{}
Like a flute among trombones.
One, red-bearded, rearing \\{}
A welter of maimed face bashed in from some old wound, \\{}
Garbles Max Stirner. \\{}
His words knock each other like little wooden blocks. \\{}
No one heeds him, \\{}
And a lank boy with hair over his eyes \\{}
Pounds upon the table. \\{}
—He is chairman.
Egos yet in the primer, \\{}
Hearing world-voices \\{}
Chanting grand arias\dots{} \\{}
Majors resonant, \\{}
Stunning with sound\dots{} \\{}
Baffling minors \\{}
Half-heard like rain on pools\dots{} \\{}
Majestic discordances \\{}
Greater than harmonies\dots{} \\{}
—Gleaning out of it all \\{}
Passion, bewilderment, pain\dots{}
Egos yearning with the world-old want in their eyes— \\{}
Hurt hot eyes that do not sleep enough\dots{} \\{}
Striving with infinite effort, \\{}
Frustrate yet ever pursuing \\{}
The great white Liberty, \\{}
Trailing her dissolving glory over each hard-won barricade— \\{}
Only to fade anew\dots{}
Egos crying out of unkempt deeps \\{}
And waving their dreams like flags— \\{}
Multi-colored dreams, \\{}
Winged and glorious\dots{}
A gas jet throws a stunted flame, \\{}
Vaguely illumining the groping faces. \\{}
And through the uncurtained window \\{}
Falls the waste light of stars, \\{}
As cold as wise men’s eyes\dots{} \\{}
Indifferent great stars, \\{}
Fortuitously glancing \\{}
At the secret meeting in this shut-in room, \\{}
Bare as a manger.
\end{verse}
\section{VIII}
\begin{verse}
Lights go out \\{}
And the stark trunks of the factories \\{}
Melt into the drawn darkness, \\{}
Sheathing like a seamless garment.
And mothers take home their babies, \\{}
Waxen and delicately curled, \\{}
Like little potted flowers closed under the stars.
Lights go out \\{}
And the young men shut their eyes, \\{}
But life turns in them\dots{}
Life in the cramped ova \\{}
Tearing and rending asunder its living cells\dots{} \\{}
Wars, arts, discoveries, rebellions, travails, immolations, \\{}
~~~~~cataclysms, hates\dots{} \\{}
Pent in the shut flesh. \\{}
And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness \\{}
~~~~~unsupportable\dots{} \\{}
Their eyes—heavy and dimmed \\{}
With dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind— \\{}
Staring as through a choked glass. \\{}
And they gaze at the moon—throwing off a faint heat— \\{}
The moon, blond and burning, creeping to their cots \\{}
Softly, as on naked feet\dots{} \\{}
Lolling on the coverlet\dots{} like a woman offering her white body.
Nude glory of the moon! \\{}
That leaps like an athlete on the bosoms of the young girls stripped \\{}
~~~~~of their linens; \\{}
Stroking their breasts that are smooth and cool as mother-of-pearl \\{}
Till the nipples tingle and burn as though little lips plucked at them. \\{}
They shudder and grow faint. \\{}
And their ears are filled as with a delirious rhapsody, \\{}
That Life, like a drunken player, \\{}
Strikes out of their clear white bodies \\{}
As out of ivory keys.
Lights go out\dots{} \\{}
And the great lovers linger in little groups, still passionately debating, \\{}
Or one may walk in silence, listening only to the still summons of Life— \\{}
Life making the great Demand\dots{} \\{}
Calling its new Christs\dots{} \\{}
Till tears come, blurring the stars \\{}
That grow tender and comforting like the eyes of comrades; \\{}
And the moon rolls behind the Battery \\{}
Like a word molten out of the mouth of God.
Lights go out\dots{} \\{}
And colors rush together, \\{}
Fusing and floating away\dots{} \\{}
Pale worn gold like the settings of old jewels\dots{} \\{}
Mauves, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples \\{}
And burning spires in aureoles of light \\{}
Like shimmering auras.
They are covering up the pushcarts\dots{} \\{}
Now all have gone save an old man with mirrors— \\{}
Little oval mirrors like tiny pools. \\{}
He shuffles up a darkened street \\{}
And the moon burnishes his mirrors till they shine like phosphorus\dots{} \\{}
The moon like a skull, \\{}
Staring out of eyeless sockets at the old men trundling home the pushcarts.
\end{verse}
\section{IX}
\begin{verse}
A sallow dawn is in the sky \\{}
As I enter my little green room. \\{}
Sadie’s light is still burning\dots{} \\{}
Without, the frail moon \\{}
Worn to a silvery tissue, \\{}
Throws a faint glamour on the roofs, \\{}
And down the shadowy spires \\{}
Lights tip-toe out\dots{} \\{}
Softly as when lovers close street doors.
Out of the Battery \\{}
A little wind \\{}
Stirs idly—as an arm \\{}
Trails over a boat’s side in dalliance— \\{}
Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat, \\{}
And Hester street, \\{}
Like a forlorn woman over-born \\{}
By many babies at her teats, \\{}
Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day.
LIFE! \\{}
Startling, vigorous life, \\{}
That squirms under my touch, \\{}
And baffles me when I try to examine it, \\{}
Or hurls me back without apology. \\{}
Leaving my ego ruffled and preening itself.
Life, \\{}
Articulate, shrill, \\{}
Screaming in provocative assertion, \\{}
Or out of the black and clotted gutters, \\{}
Piping in silvery thin \\{}
Sweet staccato \\{}
Of children’s laughter,
Or clinging over the pushcarts \\{}
Like a litter of tiny bells \\{}
Or the jingle of silver coins, \\{}
Perpetually changing hands, \\{}
Or like the Jordan somberly \\{}
Swirling in tumultuous uncharted tides, \\{}
Surface-calm.
Electric currents of life, \\{}
Throwing off thoughts like sparks, \\{}
Glittering, disappearing, \\{}
Making unknown circuits, \\{}
Or out of spent particles stirring \\{}
Feeble contortions in old faiths \\{}
Passing before the new.
Long nights argued away \\{}
In meeting halls \\{}
Back of interminable stairways— \\{}
In Roumanian wine-shops \\{}
And little Russian tea-rooms\dots{}
Feet echoing through deserted streets \\{}
In the soft darkness before dawn\dots{} \\{}
Brows aching, throbbing, burning— \\{}
Life leaping in the shaken flesh \\{}
Like flame at an asbestos curtain.
Life— \\{}
Pent, overflowing \\{}
Stoops and façades, \\{}
Jostling, pushing, contriving, \\{}
Seething as in a great vat\dots{}
Bartering, changing, extorting, \\{}
Dreaming, debating, aspiring, \\{}
Astounding, indestructible \\{}
Life of the Ghetto\dots{}
Strong flux of life, \\{}
Like a bitter wine \\{}
Out of the bloody stills of the world\dots{} \\{}
Out of the Passion eternal.
\end{verse}
\part{Manhattan Lights}
\chapter{Manhattan}
\begin{verse}
Out of the night you burn, Manhattan, \\{}
In a vesture of gold— \\{}
Span of innumerable arcs, \\{}
Flaring and multiplying— \\{}
Gold at the uttermost circles fading \\{}
Into the tenderest hint of jade, \\{}
Or fusing in tremulous twilight blues, \\{}
Robing the far-flung offices, \\{}
Scintillant-storied, forking flame, \\{}
Or soaring to luminous amethyst \\{}
Over the steeples aureoled—
Diaphanous gold, \\{}
Veiling the Woolworth, argently \\{}
Rising slender and stark \\{}
Mellifluous-shrill as a vender’s cry, \\{}
And towers squatting graven and cold \\{}
On the velvet bales of the dark, \\{}
And the Singer’s appraising \\{}
Indolent idol’s eye, \\{}
And night like a purple cloth unrolled—
Nebulous gold \\{}
Throwing an ephemeral glory about life’s vanishing points, \\{}
Wherein you burn\dots{} \\{}
You of unknown voltage \\{}
Whirling on your axis\dots{} \\{}
Scrawling vermillion signatures \\{}
Over the night’s velvet hoarding\dots{} \\{}
Insolent, towering spherical \\{}
To apices ever shifting.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Broadway}
\begin{verse}
Light! \\{}
Innumerable ions of light, \\{}
Kindling, irradiating, \\{}
All to their foci tending\dots{}
Light that jingles like anklet chains \\{}
On bevies of little lithe twinkling feet, \\{}
Or clingles in myriad vibrations \\{}
Like trillions of porcelain \\{}
Vases shattering\dots{}
Light over the laminae of roofs, \\{}
Diffusing in shimmering nebulae \\{}
About the night’s boundaries, \\{}
Or billowing in pearly foam \\{}
Submerging the low-lying stars\dots{}
Light for the feast prolonged— \\{}
Captive light in the goblets quivering\dots{} \\{}
Sparks evanescent \\{}
Struck of meeting looks— \\{}
Fringed eyelids leashing \\{}
Sheathed and leaping lights\dots{} \\{}
Infinite bubbles of light \\{}
Bursting, reforming\dots{} \\{}
Silvery filings of light \\{}
Incessantly falling\dots{} \\{}
Scintillant, sided dust of light \\{}
Out of the white flares of Broadway— \\{}
Like a great spurious diamond \\{}
In the night’s corsage faceted\dots{}
Broadway, \\{}
In ambuscades of light, \\{}
Drawing the charmed multitudes \\{}
With the slow suction of her breath— \\{}
Dangling her naked soul \\{}
Behind the blinding gold of eunuch lights \\{}
That wind about her like a bodyguard.
Or like a huge serpent, iridescent-scaled, \\{}
Trailing her coruscating length \\{}
Over the night prostrate— \\{}
Triumphant poised, \\{}
Her hydra heads above the avenues, \\{}
Values appraising \\{}
And her avid eyes \\{}
Glistening with eternal watchfulness\dots{}
Broadway— \\{}
Out of her towers rampant, \\{}
Like an unsubtle courtezan \\{}
Reserving nought for some adventurous night.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Flotsam}
\begin{verse}
Crass rays streaming from the vestibules; \\{}
Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth; \\{}
High-flung signs \\{}
Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes; \\{}
Girls in black \\{}
Circling monotonously \\{}
About the orange lights\dots{}
Nothing to guess at\dots{} \\{}
Save the darkness above \\{}
Crouching like a great cat.
In the dim-lit square, \\{}
Where dishevelled trees \\{}
Tustle with the wind—the wind like a scythe \\{}
Mowing their last leaves— \\{}
Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze— \\{}
Pale oval arcs \\{}
Like ailing virgins, \\{}
Each out of a halo circumscribed, \\{}
Pallidly staring\dots{}
Figures drift upon the benches \\{}
With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling— \\{}
Slovenly figures like untied parcels, \\{}
And papers wrapped about their knees \\{}
Huddled one to the other, \\{}
Cringing to the wind— \\{}
The sided wind, \\{}
Leaving no breach untried\dots{}
So many and all so still\dots{} \\{}
The fountain slobbering its stone basin \\{}
Is louder than They— \\{}
Flotsam of the five oceans \\{}
Here on this raft of the world.
This old man’s head \\{}
Has found a woman’s shoulder. \\{}
The wind juggles with her shawl \\{}
That flaps about them like a sail, \\{}
And splashes her red faded hair \\{}
Over the salt stubble of his chin. \\{}
A light foam is on his lips, \\{}
As though dreams surged in him \\{}
Breaking and ebbing away\dots{} \\{}
And the bare boughs shuffle above him \\{}
And the twigs rattle like dice\dots{}
She—diffused like a broken beetle— \\{}
Sprawls without grace, \\{}
Her face gray as asphalt, \\{}
Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges\dots{} \\{}
Shadows ply about her mouth— \\{}
Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, \\{}
That dances above her its dance of dry bones.
\end{verse}
\section{II}
\begin{verse}
A uniformed front, \\{}
Paunched; \\{}
A glance like a blow, \\{}
The swing of an arm, \\{}
Verved, vigorous; \\{}
Boot-heels clanking \\{}
In metallic rhythm; \\{}
The blows of a baton, \\{}
Quick, staccato\dots{}
—There is a rustling along the benches \\{}
As of dried leaves raked over\dots{} \\{}
And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand, \\{}
Tucking the displaced paper about his knees.
Colder\dots{} \\{}
And a frost under foot, \\{}
Acid, corroding, \\{}
Eating through worn bootsoles.
Drab forms blur into greenish vapor. \\{}
Through boughs like cross-bones, \\{}
Pale arcs flare and shiver \\{}
Like lilies in a wind.
High over Broadway \\{}
A far-flung sign \\{}
Glitters in indigo darkness \\{}
And spurts again rhythmically, \\{}
Spraying great drops \\{}
Red as a hemorrhage.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Spring}
\begin{verse}
A spring wind on the Bowery, \\{}
Blowing the fluff of night shelters \\{}
Off bedraggled garments, \\{}
And agitating the gutters, that eject little spirals of vapor \\{}
Like lewd growths.
Bare-legged children stamp in the puddles, splashing each other, \\{}
One—with a choir-boy’s face \\{}
Twits me as I pass\dots{} \\{}
The word, like a muddied drop, \\{}
Seems to roll over and not out of \\{}
The bowed lips, \\{}
Yet dewy red \\{}
And sweetly immature.
People sniff the air with an upward look— \\{}
Even the mite of a girl \\{}
Who never plays\dots{} \\{}
Her mother smiles at her \\{}
With eyes like vacant lots \\{}
Rimming vistas of mean streets \\{}
And endless washing days\dots{} \\{}
Yet with sun on the lines \\{}
And a drying breeze.
The old candy woman \\{}
Shivers in the young wind. \\{}
Her eyes—littered with memories \\{}
Like ancient garrets, \\{}
Or dusty unaired rooms where someone died— \\{}
Ask nothing of the spring.
But a pale pink dream \\{}
Trembles about this young girl’s body, \\{}
Draping it like a glowing aura.
She gloats in a mirror \\{}
Over her gaudy hat, \\{}
With its flower God never thought of\dots{}
And the dream, unrestrained, \\{}
Floats about the loins of a soldier, \\{}
Where it quivers a moment, \\{}
Warming to a crimson \\{}
Like the scarf of a toreador\dots{}
But the delicate gossamer breaks at his contact \\{}
And recoils to her in strands of shattered rose.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Bowery Afternoon}
\begin{verse}
Drab discoloration \\{}
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops, \\{}
Second-hand clothing, \\{}
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms, \\{}
Odors of rancid life\dots{}
Deadly uniformity \\{}
Of eyes and windows \\{}
Alike devoid of light\dots{} \\{}
Holes wherein life scratches— \\{}
Mangy life \\{}
Nosing to the gutter’s end\dots{}
Show-rooms and mimic pillars \\{}
Flaunting out of their gaudy vestibules \\{}
Bosoms and posturing thighs\dots{}
Over all the Elevated \\{}
Droning like a bloated fly.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Promenade}
\begin{verse}
~~~~~Undulant rustlings, \\{}
~~~~~Of oncoming silk, \\{}
~~~~~Rhythmic, incessant, \\{}
~~~~~Like the motion of leaves\dots{} \\{}
~~~~~Fragments of color \\{}
~~~~~In glowing surprises\dots{} \\{}
~~~~~Pink inuendoes \\{}
~~~~~Hooded in gray \\{}
~~~~~Like buds in a cobweb \\{}
~~~~~Pearled at dawn\dots{} \\{}
~~~~~Glimpses of green \\{}
~~~~~And blurs of gold \\{}
~~~~~And delicate mauves \\{}
~~~~~That snatch at youth\dots{} \\{}
~~~~~And bodies all rosily \\{}
~~~~~Fleshed for the airing, \\{}
~~~~~In warm velvety surges \\{}
~~~~~Passing imperious, slow\dots{}
Women drift into the limousines \\{}
That shut like silken caskets \\{}
On gems half weary of their glittering\dots{} \\{}
Lamps open like pale moon flowers\dots{} \\{}
Arcs are radiant opals \\{}
Strewn along the dusk\dots{} \\{}
No common lights invade. \\{}
And spires rise like litanies— \\{}
Magnificats of stone \\{}
Over the white silence of the arcs, \\{}
Burning in perpetual adoration.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Fog}
\begin{verse}
Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk— \\{}
Snaring, illuding, concealing, \\{}
Magically conjuring— \\{}
Turning to fairy-coaches \\{}
Beetle-backed limousines \\{}
Scampering under the great Arch— \\{}
Making a decoy of blue overalls \\{}
And mystery of a scarlet shawl— \\{}
Indolently— \\{}
Knowing no impediment of its sure advance— \\{}
Descends the fog.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Faces}
\begin{verse}
A late snow beats \\{}
With cold white fists upon the tenements— \\{}
Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters, \\{}
Like tall old slatterns \\{}
Pulling aprons about their heads.
Lights slanting out of Mott Street \\{}
Gibber out, \\{}
Or dribble through bar-room slits, \\{}
Anonymous shapes \\{}
Conniving behind shuttered panes \\{}
Caper and disappear\dots{} \\{}
Where the Bowery \\{}
Is throbbing like a fistula \\{}
Back of her ice-scabbed fronts.
Livid faces \\{}
Glimmer in furtive doorways, \\{}
Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys, \\{}
Smears of faces like muddied beads, \\{}
Making a ghastly rosary \\{}
The night mumbles over \\{}
And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper\dots{} \\{}
Patrolling arcs \\{}
Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line \\{}
Stalk them as they pass, \\{}
Silent as though accouched of the darkness, \\{}
And the wind noses among them, \\{}
~~~~~Like a skunk \\{}
That roots about the heart\dots{}
Colder: \\{}
And the Elevated slams upon the silence \\{}
Like a ponderous door. \\{}
Then all is still again, \\{}
Save for the wind fumbling over \\{}
The emptily swaying faces— \\{}
The wind rummaging \\{}
Like an old Jew\dots{}
Faces in glimmering rows\dots{} \\{}
(No sign of the abject life— \\{}
Not even a blasphemy\dots{}) \\{}
But the spindle legs keep time \\{}
To a limping rhythm, \\{}
And the shadows twitch upon the snow \\{}
~~~~~Convulsively— \\{}
As though death played \\{}
With some ungainly dolls.
\end{verse}
\part{Labor}
\chapter{Debris}
\begin{verse}
I love those spirits \\{}
That men stand off and point at, \\{}
Or shudder and hood up their souls— \\{}
Those ruined ones, \\{}
Where Liberty has lodged an hour \\{}
And passed like flame, \\{}
Bursting asunder the too small house.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Dedication}
\begin{verse}
I would be a torch unto your hand, \\{}
A lamp upon your forehead, Labor, \\{}
In the wild darkness before the Dawn \\{}
That I shall never see\dots{}
We shall advance together, my Beloved, \\{}
Awaiting the mighty ushering\dots{} \\{}
Together we shall make the last grand charge \\{}
And ride with gorgeous Death \\{}
With all her spangles on \\{}
And cymbals clashing\dots{} \\{}
And you shall rush on exultant as I fall— \\{}
Scattering a brief fire about your feet\dots{}
Let it be so\dots{} \\{}
Better—while life is quick \\{}
And every pain immense and joy supreme, \\{}
And all I have and am \\{}
Flames upward to the dream\dots{} \\{}
Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn, \\{}
Burning out the wick.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Song of Iron}
\section{I}
\begin{verse}
Not yet hast Thou sounded \\{}
Thy clangorous music, \\{}
Whose strings are under the mountains\dots{} \\{}
Not yet hast Thou spoken \\{}
The blooded, implacable Word\dots{}
But I hear in the Iron singing— \\{}
In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding— \\{}
Thy barbaric exhortation\dots{} \\{}
And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved, \\{}
Answering Thy call\dots{} \\{}
All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice, \\{}
And sings exultant with the Iron, \\{}
For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen\dots{}
Oh fashioned in fire— \\{}
Needing flame for Thy ultimate word— \\{}
Behold me, a cupola \\{}
Poured to Thy use!
Heed not my tremulous body \\{}
That faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet. \\{}
Break it\dots{} and cast it aside\dots{} \\{}
But make of my spirit \\{}
That dares and endures \\{}
Thy crucible\dots{} \\{}
Pour through my soul \\{}
Thy molten, world-whelming song.
\dots{} Here at Thy uttermost gate \\{}
Like a new Mary, I wait\dots{}
\end{verse}
\section{II}
\begin{verse}
Charge the blast furnace, workman\dots{} \\{}
Open the valves— \\{}
Drive the fires high\dots{} \\{}
(Night is above the gates).
How golden-hot the ore is \\{}
From the cupola spurting, \\{}
Tossing the flaming petals \\{}
Over the silt and furnace ash— \\{}
Blown leaves, devastating, \\{}
Falling about the world\dots{}
Out of the furnace mouth— \\{}
Out of the giant mouth— \\{}
The raging, turgid, mouth— \\{}
Fall fiery blossoms \\{}
Gold with the gold of buttercups \\{}
In a field at sunset, \\{}
Or huskier gold of dandelions, \\{}
Warmed in sun-leavings, \\{}
Or changing to the paler hue \\{}
At the creamy hearts of primroses.
Charge the converter, workman— \\{}
Tired from the long night? \\{}
But the earth shall suck up darkness— \\{}
The earth that holds so much\dots{} \\{}
And out of these molten flowers, \\{}
Shall shape the heavy fruit\dots{}
Then open the valves— \\{}
Drive the fires high, \\{}
Your blossoms nurturing. \\{}
(Day is at the gates \\{}
And a young wind\dots{})
Put by your rod, comrade, \\{}
And look with me, shading your eyes\dots{} \\{}
Do you not see— \\{}
Through the lucent haze \\{}
Out of the converter rising— \\{}
In the spirals of fire \\{}
Smiting and blinding, \\{}
A shadowy shape \\{}
White as a flame of sacrifice, \\{}
Like a lily swaying?
\end{verse}
\section{III}
\begin{verse}
The ore leaping in the crucibles, \\{}
The ore communicant, \\{}
Sending faint thrills along the leads\dots{} \\{}
Fire is running along the roots of the mountains\dots{} \\{}
I feel the long recoil of earth \\{}
As under a mighty quickening\dots{} \\{}
(Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron\dots{}) \\{}
All palpitant, I wait\dots{}
\end{verse}
\section{IV}
\begin{verse}
Here ye, Dictators—late Lords of the Iron, \\{}
Shut in your council rooms, palsied, depowered— \\{}
The blooded, implacable Word? \\{}
Not whispered in cloture, one to the other, \\{}
(Brother in fear of the fear of his brother\dots{}) \\{}
But chanted and thundered \\{}
On the brazen, articulate tongues of the Iron \\{}
Babbling in flame\dots{}
Sung to the rhythm of prisons dismantled, \\{}
Manacles riven and ramparts defaced\dots{} \\{}
(Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling\dots{}) \\{}
Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced\dots{}
Sung to the rhythm of arsenals burning\dots{} \\{}
Clangor of iron smashing on iron, \\{}
Turmoil of metal and dissonant baying \\{}
Of mail-sided monsters shattered asunder\dots{}
Hulks of black turbines all mangled and roaring, \\{}
Battering egress through ramparted walls\dots{} \\{}
Mouthing of engines, made rabid with power, \\{}
Into the holocaust snorting and plunging\dots{}
Mighty converters torn from their axis, \\{}
Flung to the furnaces, vomiting fire, \\{}
Jumbled in white-heaten masses disshapen\dots{} \\{}
Writhing in flame-tortured levers of iron\dots{}
Gnashing of steel serpents twisting and dying\dots{} \\{}
Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending\dots{} \\{}
Shock of leviathans prone on each other\dots{} \\{}
Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore\dots{} \\{}
Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying \\{}
In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron, \\{}
Tasting the turbulent fury of living, \\{}
Mad with a moment’s exuberant living! \\{}
Crash of devastating hammers despoiling.. \\{}
Hands inexorable, marring \\{}
What hands had so cunningly moulded\dots{}
Structures of steel welded, subtily tempered, \\{}
Marvelous wrought of the wizards of ore, \\{}
Torn into octaves discordantly clashing, \\{}
Chords never final but onward progressing \\{}
In monstrous fusion of sound ever smiting on sound \\{}
~~~~~in mad vortices whirling\dots{}
Till the ear, tortured, shrieks for cessation \\{}
Of the raving inharmonies hatefully mingling\dots{} \\{}
The fierce obligato the steel pipes are screaming\dots{} \\{}
The blare of the rude molten music of Iron\dots{}
\end{verse}
\chapter{Frank Little at Calvary}
\section{I}
\begin{verse}
He walked under the shadow of the Hill \\{}
Where men are fed into the fires \\{}
And walled apart\dots{} \\{}
Unarmed and alone, \\{}
He summoned his mates from the pit’s mouth \\{}
Where tools rested on the floors \\{}
And great cranes swung \\{}
Unemptied, on the iron girders. \\{}
And they, who were the Lords of the Hill, \\{}
Were seized with a great fear, \\{}
When they heard out of the silence of wheels \\{}
The answer ringing \\{}
In endless reverberations \\{}
Under the mountain\dots{}
So they covered up their faces \\{}
And crept upon him as he slept\dots{} \\{}
Out of eye-holes in black cloth \\{}
They looked upon him who had flung \\{}
Between them and their ancient prey \\{}
The frail barricade of his life\dots{} \\{}
And when night—that has connived at so much— \\{}
Was heavy with the unborn day, \\{}
They haled him from his bed\dots{}
Who might know of that wild ride? \\{}
Only the bleak Hill— \\{}
The red Hill, vigilant, \\{}
Like a blood-shot eye \\{}
In the black mask of night— \\{}
Dared watch them as they raced \\{}
By each blind-folded street \\{}
Godiva might have ridden down\dots{} \\{}
But when they stopped beside the Place, \\{}
I know he turned his face \\{}
Wistfully to the accessory night\dots{}
And when he saw—against the sky, \\{}
Sagged like a silken net \\{}
Under its load of stars— \\{}
The black bridge poised \\{}
Like a gigantic spider motionless\dots{} \\{}
I know there was a silence in his heart, \\{}
As of a frozen sea, \\{}
Where some half lifted arm, mid-way \\{}
Wavers, and drops heavily\dots{}
I know he waved to life, \\{}
And that life signaled back, transcending space, \\{}
To each high-powered sense, \\{}
So that he missed no gesture of the wind \\{}
Drawing the shut leaves close\dots{} \\{}
So that he saw the light on comrades’ faces \\{}
Of camp fires out of sight\dots{} \\{}
And the savor of meat and bread \\{}
Blew in his nostrils\dots{} and the breath \\{}
Of unrailed spaces \\{}
Where shut wild clover smelled as sweet \\{}
As a virgin in her bed.
I know he looked once at America, \\{}
Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe, \\{}
And once at the skies whirling above him\dots{} \\{}
Then all that he had spoken against \\{}
And struck against and thrust against \\{}
Over the frail barricade of his life \\{}
Rushed between him and the stars\dots{}
\end{verse}
\section{II}
\begin{verse}
Life thunders on\dots{} \\{}
Over the black bridge \\{}
The line of lighted cars \\{}
Creeps like a monstrous serpent \\{}
Spooring gold\dots{}
Watchman, what of the track?
Night\dots{} silence\dots{} stars\dots{} \\{}
All’s Well!
\end{verse}
\section{III}
\begin{verse}
Light\dots{} \\{}
(Breaking mists\dots{} \\{}
Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold\dots{}) \\{}
Light over the pit mouths, \\{}
Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill\dots{} \\{}
(The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.) \\{}
Light\dots{} \\{}
Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals\dots{} \\{}
Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips\dots{} \\{}
Gleaming metallic and cold \\{}
In numberless slivers of steel\dots{} \\{}
Light over the trestles and the iron clips \\{}
Of the black bridge—poised like a gigantic spider motionless— \\{}
Sweet inquisition of light, like a child’s wonder\dots{} \\{}
Intrusive, innocently staring light \\{}
That nothing appals\dots{}
Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves, \\{}
Cooing and calling \\{}
All winged and avid things \\{}
Waking the early flies, keen to the scent\dots{} \\{}
Green-jeweled iridescent flies \\{}
Unerringly steering— \\{}
Swarming over the blackened lips, \\{}
The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold\dots{}
Watchman, what of the Hill?
Wheels turn; \\{}
The laden cars \\{}
Go rumbling to the mill, \\{}
And Labor walks beside the mules\dots{} \\{}
All’s Well with the Hill!
\end{verse}
\chapter{Spires}
\begin{verse}
Spires of Grace Church, \\{}
For you the workers of the world \\{}
Travailed with the mountains\dots{} \\{}
Aborting their own dreams \\{}
Till the dream of you arose— \\{}
Beautiful, swaddled in stone— \\{}
Scorning their hands.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Legion of Iron}
\begin{verse}
They pass through the great iron gates— \\{}
Men with eyes gravely discerning, \\{}
Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes \\{}
Or split an inch into thousandths— \\{}
Men tempered by fire as the ore is \\{}
And planned to resistance \\{}
Like steel that has cooled in the trough; \\{}
Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment— \\{}
To conquer, withstand, overthrow\dots{} \\{}
Men mannered to large undertakings, \\{}
Knowing force as a brother \\{}
And power as something to play with, \\{}
Seeing blood as a slip of the iron, \\{}
To be wiped from the tools \\{}
Lest they rust.
But what if they stood aside, \\{}
Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?
What of the flamboyant cities \\{}
And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind\dots{} \\{}
And the armies halted\dots{} \\{}
And the train mid-way on the mountain \\{}
And idle men chaffing across the trenches\dots{} \\{}
And the cursing and lamentation \\{}
And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world? \\{}
What if they stayed apart, \\{}
Inscrutably smiling, \\{}
Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire \\{}
And the sea to row-boats \\{}
And the lands marooned— \\{}
Till Time should like a paralytic sit, \\{}
A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?
\end{verse}
\chapter{Fuel}
\begin{verse}
What of the silence of the keys \\{}
And silvery hands? The iron sings\dots{} \\{}
Though bows lie broken on the strings, \\{}
The fly-wheels turn eternally\dots{}
Bring fuel—drive the fires high\dots{} \\{}
Throw all this artist-lumber in \\{}
And foolish dreams of making things\dots{} \\{}
(Ten million men are called to die.)
As for the common men apart, \\{}
Who sweat to keep their common breath, \\{}
And have no hour for books or art— \\{}
What dreams have these to hide from death!
\end{verse}
\chapter{A Toast}
\begin{verse}
Not your martyrs anointed of heaven— \\{}
~~~~~The ages are red where they trod— \\{}
But the Hunted—the world’s bitter leaven— \\{}
~~~~~Who smote at your imbecile God—
A being to pander and fawn to, \\{}
~~~~~To propitiate, flatter and dread \\{}
As a thing that your souls are in pawn to, \\{}
~~~~~A Dealer who traffics the dead;
A Trader with greed never sated, \\{}
~~~~~Who barters the souls in his snares, \\{}
That were trapped in the lusts he created, \\{}
~~~~~For incense and masses and prayers—
They are crushed in the coils of your halters; \\{}
~~~~~‘Twere well—by the creeds ye have nursed— \\{}
That ye send up a cry from your altars, \\{}
~~~~~A mass for the Martyrs Accursed;
A passionate prayer from reprieval \\{}
~~~~~For the Brotherhood not understood— \\{}
For the Heroes who died for the evil, \\{}
~~~~~Believing the evil was good.
To the Breakers, the Bold, the Despoilers, \\{}
~~~~~Who dreamed of a world over-thrown\dots{} \\{}
They who died for the millions of toilers— \\{}
~~~~~Few—fronting the nations alone!
—To the Outlawed of men and the Branded, \\{}
~~~~~Whether hated or hating they fell— \\{}
I pledge the devoted, red-handed, \\{}
~~~~~Unfaltering Heroes of Hell!
\end{verse}
\part{Accidentals}
\chapter{“The Everlasting Return”}
\begin{verse}
It is dark\dots{} so dark, I remember the sun on Chios\dots{} \\{}
It is still\dots{} so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean\dots{}
Ten times we had watched the moon \\{}
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters \\{}
And round into a full maternity\dots{} \\{}
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh \\{}
Save the man flesh on either hand \\{}
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.
The Athenian boy sat on my left\dots{} \\{}
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine\dots{} \\{}
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian, \\{}
Grinning Phildar \\{}
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth. \\{}
Many a whip had coiled about him \\{}
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels, \\{}
And his skin was red and tough as a bull’s hide cured in the sun. \\{}
He did not sing like the other slaves, \\{}
But when a big wind came up he screamed with it. \\{}
And always he looked out to sea, \\{}
Save when he tore at his fish ends \\{}
Or spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart \\{}
~~~~~like an opened fruit.
We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern. \\{}
She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea. \\{}
All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears, \\{}
And when night came on \\{}
And little naked stars dabbled in the water \\{}
And half the crouching moon \\{}
Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light, \\{}
We heard them singing at their oars\dots{} \\{}
We who had no breath for song.
There was no sound in our boat \\{}
Save the clingle of wrist chains \\{}
And the sobbing of the young Greek. \\{}
I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea\dots{} \\{}
I cursed him that his oar kept ill time\dots{} \\{}
When he looked at me I cursed him again, \\{}
That his eyes were soft as a woman’s.
How long\dots{} since their last shell gouged our batteries? \\{}
How long\dots{} since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern? \\{}
(It was the damned green moon that nosed us out\dots{} \\{}
The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame\dots{})
They loosed each man’s right hand \\{}
As the galley spent on our decks\dots{} \\{}
And amazed and bloodied we reared half up \\{}
And fought askew with the left hand shackled\dots{} \\{}
But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets \\{}
And knotted our thews like string\dots{} \\{}
Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten\dots{}
How long\dots{} since our gauges fell \\{}
And the sea shoved us under? \\{}
It is dark\dots{} so dark\dots{} \\{}
Darkness presses hairy-hot \\{}
Where three make crowded company\dots{} \\{}
And the rank steel smells\dots{} \\{}
It is still\dots{} so still\dots{} \\{}
I seem to hear the wind \\{}
On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above\dots{}
It was still\dots{} so still\dots{} we three that were left alive \\{}
Stared in each other’s faces\dots{} \\{}
But three make bitter company at one man’s bread\dots{} \\{}
And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon’s edge in the water.
One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth\dots{} \\{}
And one shivered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over\dots{} \\{}
But one struck with his hate in his hand\dots{}
After that I remember \\{}
Only the dead men’s oars that flapped in the sea\dots{} \\{}
The dead men’s oars that rattled and clicked like idiots’ tongues.
It is still\dots{} so still, with the jargon of engines quiet. \\{}
We three awaiting the crunch of the sea \\{}
Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other’s faces\dots{} \\{}
We three sheathing hate in our hearts\dots{} \\{}
But when hate shall have made its circuit, \\{}
Our bones will be loving company \\{}
Here in the sea’s den\dots{} \\{}
And one whimpers and cries on his God \\{}
And one sits sullenly \\{}
But both draw away from me\dots{} \\{}
For I am the pyre their memories burn on\dots{} \\{}
Like black flames leaping \\{}
Our fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea\dots{} \\{}
The sea that kneels above us\dots{} \\{}
And makes no sign.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Palestine}
\begin{verse}
Old plant of Asia— \\{}
Mutilated vine \\{}
Holding earth’s leaping sap \\{}
In every stem and shoot \\{}
That lopped off, sprouts again— \\{}
Why should you seek a plateau walled about, \\{}
Whose garden is the world?
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Song}
\begin{verse}
That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks \\{}
~~~~~on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron, \\{}
And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine \\{}
~~~~~floating like cotton-down, \\{}
And the harsh and terrible screaming, \\{}
And that strange vibration at the roots of us\dots{} \\{}
Desire, fierce, like a song\dots{} \\{}
And we heard \\{}
(Do you remember?) \\{}
All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue \\{}
And bugles in little home towns \\{}
And children’s harmonicas bleating
~~~~~America!
And after\dots{} \\{}
(Do you remember?) \\{}
The drollery of the wind on our faces, \\{}
And horizons reeling, \\{}
And the terror of the plain \\{}
Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun\dots{} \\{}
Under us—threshing and twanging \\{}
Torn-up roots of the Song\dots{}
\end{verse}
\chapter{To The Others}
\begin{verse}
I see you, refulgent ones, \\{}
Burning so steadily \\{}
Like big white arc lights\dots{} \\{}
There are so many of you. \\{}
I like to watch you weaving— \\{}
Altogether and with precision \\{}
Each his ray— \\{}
Your tracery of light, \\{}
Making a shining way about America.
I note your infinite reactions— \\{}
In glassware \\{}
And sequin \\{}
And puddles \\{}
And bits of jet— \\{}
And here and there a diamond\dots{}
But you do not yet see me, \\{}
Who am a torch blown along the wind, \\{}
Flickering to a spark \\{}
But never out.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Babel}
\begin{verse}
Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel— \\{}
Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul, \\{}
So that never again should men be able \\{}
To fashion one infinite, towering whole.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Fiddler}
\begin{verse}
In a little Hungarian cafe \\{}
Men and women are drinking \\{}
Yellow wine in tall goblets.
Through the milky haze of the smoke, \\{}
The fiddler, under-sized, blond, \\{}
Leans to his violin \\{}
As to the breast of a woman. \\{}
Red hair kindles to fire \\{}
On the black of his coat-sleeve, \\{}
Where his white thin hand \\{}
Trembles and dives, \\{}
Like a sliver of moonlight, \\{}
When wind has broken the water.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Dawn Wind}
\begin{verse}
Wind, just arisen— \\{}
(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss \\{}
In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars, \\{}
Or niche of cliff under the eagles?) \\{}
You of living things, \\{}
So gay and tender and full of play— \\{}
Why do you blow on my thoughts—like cut flowers \\{}
Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?
I see you \\{}
Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation \\{}
And frisking away, \\{}
Deliciously rumpling the grass\dots{}
So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle, \\{}
Prattling of fields \\{}
Before I had had my milk\dots{} \\{}
Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One? \\{}
I—swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.
Let be \\{}
My dreams that crackle under your breath\dots{} \\{}
You have the dust of the world to blow on\dots{} \\{}
Do not tag me and dance away, looking back\dots{} \\{}
I am too old to play with you, \\{}
Eternal Child.
\end{verse}
\chapter{North Wind}
\begin{verse}
I love you, malcontent \\{}
Male wind— \\{}
Shaking the pollen from a flower \\{}
Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.
Blow on and over my dreams\dots{} \\{}
Scatter my sick dreams\dots{} \\{}
Throw your lusty arms about me\dots{} \\{}
Envelop all my hot body\dots{} \\{}
Carry me to pine forests— \\{}
Great, rough-bearded forests\dots{} \\{}
Bring me to stark plains and steppes\dots{} \\{}
I would have the North to-night— \\{}
The cold, enduring North.
And if we should meet the Snow, \\{}
Whirling in spirals, \\{}
And he should blind my eyes\dots{} \\{}
Ally, you will defend me— \\{}
You will hold me close, \\{}
Blowing on my eyelids.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Destroyer}
\begin{verse}
I am of the wind\dots{} \\{}
A wisp of the battering wind\dots{}
I trail my fingers along the Alps \\{}
And an avalanche falls in my wake\dots{} \\{}
I feel in my quivering length \\{}
When it buries the hamlet beneath\dots{}
I hurriedly sweep aside \\{}
The cities that clutter our path\dots{} \\{}
As we whirl about the circle of the globe\dots{} \\{}
As we tear at the pillars of the world\dots{} \\{}
Open to the wind, \\{}
The Destroyer! \\{}
The wind that is battering at your gates.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Lullaby}
\begin{verse}
Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown\dots{} \\{}
(There’s a shout at the door an’ a big red light\dots{}) \\{}
Lil’ coon baby, mammy is down\dots{} \\{}
Han’s that hold yuh are steady an’ white\dots{}
Look piccaninny—such a gran’ blaze \\{}
Lickin’ up the roof an’ the sticks of home— \\{}
Ever see the like in all yo’ days! \\{}
—Cain’t yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?
Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky! \\{}
Look at the cherries driftin’ by— \\{}
Bright red cherries spilled on the groun’— \\{}
Piping-hot cherries at nuthin’ a poun’!
Hush, mah lil’ black-bug—doan yuh weep. \\{}
Daddy’s run away an’ mammy’s in a heap \\{}
By her own fron’ door in the blazin’ heat \\{}
Outah the shacks like warts on the street\dots{}
An’ the singin’ flame an’ the gleeful crowd \\{}
Circlin’ aroun’\dots{} won’t mammy be proud! \\{}
With a stone at her hade an’ a stone on her heart, \\{}
An’ her mouth like a red plum, broken apart\dots{}
See where the blue an’ khaki prance, \\{}
Adding brave colors to the dance \\{}
About the big bonfire white folks make— \\{}
Such gran’ doin’s fo’ a lil’ coon’s sake!
Hear all the eagah feet runnin’ in town— \\{}
See all the willin’ han’s reach outah night— \\{}
Han’s that are wonderful, steady an’ white! \\{}
To toss up a lil’ babe, blinkin’ an’ brown\dots{}
Rock-a-by baby—higher an’ higher! \\{}
Mammy is sleepin’ an’ daddy’s run lame\dots{} \\{}
(Soun’ may yuh sleep in yo’ cradle o’ fire!) \\{}
Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame\dots{}
(An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women \\{}
flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.)
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Foundling}
\begin{verse}
Snow wraiths circle us \\{}
Like washers of the dead, \\{}
Flapping their white wet cloths \\{}
Impatiently \\{}
About the grizzled head, \\{}
Where the coarse hair mats like grass, \\{}
And the efficient wind \\{}
With cold professional baste \\{}
Probes like a lancet \\{}
Through the cotton shirt\dots{}
About us are white cliffs and space. \\{}
No façades show, \\{}
Nor roof nor any spire\dots{} \\{}
All sheathed in snow\dots{} \\{}
The parasitic snow \\{}
That clings about them like a blight.
Only detached lights \\{}
Float hazily like greenish moons, \\{}
And endlessly \\{}
Down the whore-street, \\{}
Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm, \\{}
The blizzard waltzes with the night.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Woman With Jewels}
\begin{verse}
The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, \\{}
Spraying light like a fountain. \\{}
Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers \\{}
And on her arms, great as thighs, \\{}
Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. \\{}
She is obesely beautiful. \\{}
Her eyes are full of bleared lights, \\{}
Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore\dots{} \\{}
And her mouth is scarlet and full—only a little crumpled— \\{}
~~~~~like a flower that has been pressed apart\dots{}
Why does she come alone to this obscure basement— \\{}
She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her \\{}
~~~~~on either side?
She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her, \\{}
~~~~~spilling the soup. \\{}
The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs \\{}
~~~~~in their silken fleshings\dots{} \\{}
The mountainous breasts tremble\dots{} \\{}
There is an agitation in her gems, \\{}
That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays\dots{} \\{}
She erupts explosive breaths\dots{} \\{}
Every step is an adventure \\{}
From this\dots{} \\{}
The serpent’s tooth \\{}
Saved Cleopatra.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Submerged}
\begin{verse}
I have known only my own shallows— \\{}
Safe, plumbed places, \\{}
Where I was wont to preen myself.
But for the abyss \\{}
I wanted a plank beneath \\{}
And horizons\dots{}
I was afraid of the silence \\{}
And the slipping toe-hold\dots{}
Oh, could I now dive \\{}
Into the unexplored deeps of me— \\{}
Delve and bring up and give \\{}
All that is submerged, encased, unfolded, \\{}
That is yet the best.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Art and Life}
\begin{verse}
When Art goes bounding, lean, \\{}
Up hill-tops fired green \\{}
To pluck a rose for life.
Life like a broody hen \\{}
Cluck-clucks him back again.
But when Art, imbecile, \\{}
Sits old and chill \\{}
On sidings shaven clean, \\{}
And counts his clustering \\{}
Dead daisies on a string \\{}
With witless laughter\dots{}
Then like a new Jill \\{}
Toiling up a hill \\{}
Life scrambles after.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Brooklyn Bridge}
\begin{verse}
Pythoness body—arching \\{}
Over the night like an ecstasy— \\{}
I feel your coils tightening\dots{} \\{}
And the world’s lessening breath.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Dreams}
\begin{verse}
Men die\dots{} \\{}
Dreams only change their houses. \\{}
They cannot be lined up against a wall \\{}
And quietly buried under ground, \\{}
And no more heard of\dots{} \\{}
However deep the pit and heaped the clay— \\{}
Like seedlings of old time \\{}
Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world— \\{}
Dreams will to light.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Fire}
\begin{verse}
The old men of the world have made a fire \\{}
To warm their trembling hands. \\{}
They poke the young men in. \\{}
The young men burn like withes.
If one run a little way, \\{}
The old men are wrath. \\{}
They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames. \\{}
Green withes burn slow\dots{} \\{}
And the smoke of the young men’s torment \\{}
Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak, \\{}
And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky\dots{}
Green withes burn slow\dots{} \\{}
And the old men of the world sit round the fire \\{}
And rub their hands\dots{} \\{}
But the smoke of the young men’s torment \\{}
Ascends up for ever and ever.
\end{verse}
\chapter{A Memory}
\begin{verse}
I remember \\{}
The crackle of the palm trees \\{}
Over the mooned white roofs of the town\dots{} \\{}
The shining town\dots{} \\{}
And the tender fumbling of the surf \\{}
On the sulphur-yellow beaches \\{}
As we sat\dots{} a little apart\dots{} in the close-pressing night.
The moon hung above us like a golden mango, \\{}
And the moist air clung to our faces, \\{}
Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child \\{}
And we watched the out-flung sea \\{}
Rolling to the purple edge of the world, \\{}
Yet ever back upon itself\dots{} \\{}
As we\dots{}
Inadequate night\dots{} \\{}
And mooned white memory \\{}
Of a tropic sea\dots{} \\{}
How softly it comes up \\{}
Like an ungathered lily.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Edge}
\begin{verse}
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me\dots{} \\{}
But there was time\dots{} \\{}
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, \\{}
~~~~~staring into the abyss\dots{} \\{}
I do not know how long\dots{} \\{}
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast \\{}
Like little bare-foot urchins—shaking my hands away\dots{} \\{}
But I remember \\{}
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein\dots{} \\{}
And a wind came out of the grass, \\{}
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.
As the night grew \\{}
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth \\{}
Fell in ashen folds about the hills, \\{}
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them\dots{} \\{}
There must have been a spent moon, \\{}
For the Tall One’s veil held a shimmer of silver\dots{}
That too I remember\dots{} \\{}
And the tenderly rocking mountain \\{}
Silence \\{}
And beating stars\dots{}
Dawn \\{}
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world, \\{}
And folded hills \\{}
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold, \\{}
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily, \\{}
Flecked with sun, \\{}
Fine as a golden pollen— \\{}
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.
I smelled the raw sweet essences of things, \\{}
And heard spiders in the leaves \\{}
And ticking of little feet, \\{}
As tiny creatures came out of their doors \\{}
To see God pouring light into his star\dots{}
\dots{} It seemed life held \\{}
No future and no past but this\dots{}
And I too got up stiffly from the earth, \\{}
And held my heart up like a cup\dots{}
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Garden}
\begin{verse}
Bountiful Givers, \\{}
I look along the years \\{}
And see the flowers you threw\dots{} \\{}
Anemones \\{}
And sprigs of gray \\{}
Sparse heather of the rocks, \\{}
Or a wild violet \\{}
Or daisy of a daisied field\dots{} \\{}
But each your best.
I might have worn them on my breast \\{}
To wilt in the long day\dots{} \\{}
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase \\{}
And watched each petal sallowing\dots{} \\{}
I might have held them so—mechanically— \\{}
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves \\{}
And left upon my hands \\{}
A little smear of dust.
Instead \\{}
I hid them in the soft warm loam \\{}
Of a dim shadowed place\dots{} \\{}
Deep \\{}
In a still cool grotto, \\{}
Lit only by the memories of stars \\{}
And the wide and luminous eyes \\{}
Of dead poets \\{}
That love me and that I love\dots{} \\{}
Deep\dots{} deep\dots{} \\{}
Where none may see—not even ye who gave— \\{}
About my soul your garden beautiful.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Under-Song}
\begin{verse}
There is music in the strong \\{}
~~~~~Deep-throated bush, \\{}
Whisperings of song \\{}
~~~~~Heard in the leaves’ hush— \\{}
Ballads of the trees \\{}
~~~~~In tongues unknown— \\{}
A reminiscent tone \\{}
~~~~~On minor keys\dots{}
Boughs swaying to and fro \\{}
~~~~~Though no winds pass\dots{} \\{}
Faint odors in the grass \\{}
~~~~~Where no flowers grow, \\{}
And flutterings of wings \\{}
~~~~~And faint first notes, \\{}
Once babbled on the boughs \\{}
~~~~~Of faded springs.
Is it music from the graves \\{}
~~~~~Of all things fair \\{}
Trembling on the staves \\{}
~~~~~Of spacious air— \\{}
Fluted by the winds \\{}
~~~~~Songs with no words— \\{}
Sonatas from the throats \\{}
~~~~~Of master birds?
One peering through the husk \\{}
~~~~~Of darkness thrown \\{}
May hear it in the dusk— \\{}
~~~~~That ancient tone, \\{}
Silvery as the light \\{}
~~~~~Of long dead stars \\{}
Yet falling through the night \\{}
~~~~~In trembling bars.
\end{verse}
\chapter{A Worn Rose}
\begin{verse}
Where to-day would a dainty buyer \\{}
Imbibe your scented juice, \\{}
Pale ruin with a heart of fire; \\{}
Drain your succulence with her lips, \\{}
Grown sapless from much use\dots{} \\{}
Make minister of her desire \\{}
A chalice cup where no bee sips— \\{}
~~~~~Where no wasp wanders in?
Close to her white flesh housed an hour, \\{}
~~~~~One held you\dots{} her spent form \\{}
Drew on yours for its wasted dower— \\{}
What favour could she do you more? \\{}
~~~~~Yet, of all who drink therein, \\{}
~~~~~None know it is the warm \\{}
Odorous heart of a ravished flower \\{}
Tingles so in her mouth’s red core\dots{}
\end{verse}
\chapter{Iron Wine}
\begin{verse}
The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine, \\{}
It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies, \\{}
And purple, like the blood of elderberries. \\{}
Surely it is a strong wine—juice distilled of the fierce iron. \\{}
I am drunk of its fumes. \\{}
I feel its fiery flux \\{}
Diffusing, permeating, \\{}
Working some strange alchemy\dots{} \\{}
So that I turn aside from the goodly board, \\{}
So that I look askance upon the common cup, \\{}
And from the mouths of crucibles \\{}
Suck forth the acrid sap.
\end{verse}
\chapter{Dispossessed}
\begin{verse}
Tender and tremulous green of leaves \\{}
Turned up by the wind, \\{}
Twanging among the vines— \\{}
Wind in the grass \\{}
Blowing a clear path \\{}
For the new-stripped soul to pass\dots{}
The naked soul in the sunlight\dots{} \\{}
Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight \\{}
On the hill-side shimmering.
Dance light on the wind, little soul, \\{}
Like a thistle-down floating \\{}
Over the butterflies \\{}
And the lumbering bees\dots{}
Come away from that tree \\{}
And its shadow grey as a stone\dots{}
Bathe in the pools of light \\{}
On the hillside shimmering— \\{}
Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain—
But do not linger and look \\{}
At that bleak thing under the tree.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Star}
\begin{verse}
Last night \\{}
I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea, \\{}
Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star, \\{}
Containing both as in a trembling cup.
\end{verse}
\chapter{The Tidings}
(Easter 1916)
\begin{verse}
Censored lies that mimic truth\dots{} \\{}
~~~~~Censored truth as pale as fear\dots{} \\{}
My heart is like a rousing bell— \\{}
~~~~~And but the dead to hear\dots{}
My heart is like a mother bird, \\{}
~~~~~Circling ever higher, \\{}
And the nest-tree rimmed about \\{}
~~~~~By a forest fire\dots{}
My heart is like a lover foiled \\{}
~~~~~By a broken stair— \\{}
They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street, \\{}
~~~~~And I am not there!
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The Anarchist Library
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Anti-Copyright
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Lola Ridge
The Ghetto and Other Poems
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Retrieved on May 23, 2012 from http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.gutenberg.org\Slash{}cache\Slash{}epub\Slash{}4332\Slash{}pg4332.txt
Produced by Catherine Daly\forcelinebreak The larger part of the poem entitled “The Ghetto” appeared originally in \emph{The New Republic} and some of poems were printed in \emph{The International}, \emph{Others}, \emph{Poetry}, etc. To the editors who first published the poems the author makes due acknowledgment.
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\textbf{theanarchistlibrary.org}
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