THERE can be no 
 hope of progress or 
 freedom for the 
 people without the un- 
 restricted and complete 
 enjoyment of the right 
 of free speech, free press 
 and peaceful assembly. 
 
 Gift of 
 IRA B. CR 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 IS 
 
THE 
 
 TELEPHONE OF LABOR, 
 
 GEORGE MARSHALL SLOAN. 
 
 The wagon's creaking ne'er will cease 
 While its fifth wheel gets all the grease. 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 1880. 
 
ENTERED, ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, BY 
 
 GEORGE MARSHALL SLOAN, 
 IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN AT WASHINGTON. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 For the rebel, a ruler, the exile, returned, 
 
 Who rejected the gifts of the despot he spurned 
 
 For the Man of the People, this tribute I frame, 
 
 Who, sowing for Love, reaped the harvest of Fame. 
 
 A King among men, and a Man among kings, 
 
 In the van of all Progress his trumpet voice rings. 
 
 His billowy thoughts, like an angry sea, roar 
 
 In world-sweeping waves 'gainst the turrets of 
 
 Power, 
 
 Where the bandits are 'fended, who ceaselessly spoil, 
 With Law's grim devices, the substance of Toil. 
 No fortress Pride builds upon Earth's shifting sand, 
 To enforce his control o'er Man driven from Land, 
 But has felt the fierce surges that turbulent roll 
 With the flood-tides of Love, from his fathomless 
 
 soul, 
 
 In seas phosphorescent with luminous wrath, 
 That reveal for Man's hate what they tear from his 
 
 path. 
 
 t 
 The lone heights of Self- Abnegation he trod, 
 
 Till his lips touched the coals on the altar of God 
 Till they felt the hot kiss of the Infinite pour 
 The white flame of Love's breath thro' his life's 
 glowing core. 
 
 447929 
 
.4 c r iee . , ''', Dedication. 
 
 Of the mighty and cruel, he recks not the ban, 
 As he battles for Freedom, for Justice, for Man ; 
 Full-brother of Jesus, he strives to efface 
 From the brows of the lowly, the brand of the base 
 To lift from their mire the depraved and obscene, 
 While he bids them, with Nature, " Go ! wash, and 
 be clean ! " 
 
 Man-lover whose heart for all wretchedness burns 
 Who feels all his torture, and lovingly yearns 
 For the thrall of despair, in his squalor and stench, 
 For the galley-slave, naked, and chained to his 
 
 bench, 
 
 Till he kindles anew to a generous flame 
 The embers of Manhood, long deadened by shame ; 
 And Valjean, re-created by love, is revealed, 
 As Sympathy warms what by Hate was congealed. 
 
 Who saw in poor Fanchon the virginal heart 
 When, betrayed and forsaken, she brought to the 
 
 mart, 
 
 In the struggle for life, the lewd kiss, and embrace, 
 While despair carved a smile on her pitiful face 
 As pure as Lucrece, by affection defiled ; 
 For, sinless in sinning, she sinned for her child. 
 Aye ! saw her glad spirit, set free from its clay, 
 Bajihe in Mercy's sweet spring, and don Heaven's 
 
 array 
 
 Saw the white robes that shimmer on souls of the just, 
 Grow more radiant, wrapping the martyr of lust ; 
 For, as light in the rainbow resplendent appears, 
 So the soul, when Love shines thro' the prism of tears. 
 
Dedication. 
 
 Never Martyr rejoiced with so fruited a palm ; 
 Never Monarch so conquered, or won such a realm ; 
 Never Athlete so struggled, or Toiler so wrought, 
 As he who, in exile, untiringly fought, 
 Till the Empire of Bayonets crumbled and fell, 
 The by- word of nations, who scoffed at its knell ; 
 Who forged like a Vulcan, like Jupiter hurled 
 Great words that breed tempests to freshen the world. 
 From his island Olympus, whose thunderbolts swept 
 To the claws of the Furies, the reptile who crept 
 Thro' Treason to power, from his blood-defiled den, 
 As the sword that gashed France, fled, appalled, 
 from his pen. 
 
 For the red-flag of Progress, this thread I have spun, 
 VICTOR HUGO, I lay at the foot of thy throne, 
 Due tribute to champion of all Earth's oppressed, 
 From their refuge and shelter, the Land of the West. 
 
PEOEM. 
 
 For thee primordial and persistent force at base 
 Of warring Nature, that, untiring, strains to lift 
 The stubborn crust of sullen earth to higher plane ; 
 That raves as fiercely in the microscopic drop, 
 As in the Titan's heart, aflame with prisoned wrath, 
 Sobbing strange imprecations at the jeering gods ; 
 That drags the dreaming hermit to his squalid cell ; 
 And drives the maudlin conquerer to his rocking 
 
 throne ; 
 
 Yet mocks the equal woe of each complaining wretch ; 
 Hoping from purple or from sackcloth to obtain 
 Cure for the anguish that pervades his writhing soul 
 O ! Discontent, what I have delved for in the mines 
 
 of thought, 
 I 've coined in fretful words, in hope to swell thy 
 
 spleen to rage. 
 
 Thy piping cry that, singly, sounds as far and faint 
 As from another world, on the dulled ears of pride, 
 When muttered by the footsore tramp who slinks 
 
 from Law, 
 
 Dreading the pains of trespass on a deed-fenced land, 
 Once voiced by unit will of Man, the Socialist, 
 Outs wells the arching heavens, and frights with 
 
 savage roar 
 The flaming sword that fends him from his Paradise. 
 
Proem. 
 
 Redeemer thou ! The hot cloud column in the van 
 Of angry myriads, struggling from their wilderness ; 
 Their stinging serpents, when each weakling wails 
 
 his fate 
 In solitary suffering. 
 
 For the self same act, 
 Committed by a multitude, is solemn law, 
 Which, if attempted by a thoughtful, lonely wight, 
 Is grossest treason 'gainst the ordered State. 
 
 Yea ! Killing is no Murder when a Czar's dull frown 
 Finds dim reflection from a desolated land, 
 Whose glooms are flared by Arson's nihilistic torch, 
 As blind Despair pries at the gates of Hell for light. 
 His knout is but a grieving parent's brittle switch, 
 His scaffold but the pulpit whence he reprehends, 
 Siberia but the dark room for a naughty child; 
 While worse than parricide is his offense who points 
 With nerveless hand, a threat at God's Successor, 
 throned. 
 
 But Discontent, grown universal, on the traitor's 
 
 brow 
 
 Wreathes Revolution's laurels, as rejoicing hails 
 Each creaking, shifting change of Earth's kaleido- 
 scope. 
 
 And Justice, like a butcher from his slaughter-house, 
 Her ermine scarlet-dyed with Tyrants' blood, to Love 
 Smells sweeter than a world perfumed by odors 'stilled 
 From Pity's tears, dropped on the hands of Charity. 
 
8 Proem. 
 
 When gasping Freedom bursts thro' pangs and moans 
 
 and wails, 
 
 To lie in ecstacy on Nature's brimming breasts, 
 And drain the nectar she bestows Fraternity, 
 Like a red morning star the clotted guillotine 
 Mirrors the crimson tides poured from travailing 
 
 Earth, 
 And fades in blushing dawn that heralds perfect day. 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 These, my conceits, I've dressed in simple phrase : 
 
 Believe and trust them, ridicule, condemn 
 Ignore them utterly, and let them drown 
 In Time's flood, like the vamped jests of a clown. 
 To me alike abuse, contempt and praise 
 
 As I from Ebal, Greed's mailed hosts blaspheme. 
 
 All things I try and hold what I deem good. 
 
 No caste, no creed, no fear, contracts my sense ; 
 At no Gamaliel's feet I sit to grind 
 Husk of dead thought through wonder-gaping mind, 
 And all the lore of Man is here eschewed, 
 Unless sustained by Nature's evidence. 
 
 When I describe the shambles, I don't use 
 
 Words culled from a perfumer's glossary 
 I am a Man, and for my fellows feel, 
 Whose lives are spent in turning Ixion's wheel : 
 Even curses coined by fiends were weak to accuse 
 The dogs I egg in Nature's 
 
 What cares the Sybil, though the Augur mocks 
 
 The scrolls that tell the destiny of Rome ; 
 Her message laid before his sneering eyes, 
 Her mission ended ; let him then despise 
 At peril her dread preachment, she unlocks 
 The Future, he may read, or not, the tome, 
 
10 Prefatory. 
 
 A tiny drop of Life's broad current, I 
 
 Must radiate the light that on me falls ; 
 The highest truth I see, I must proclaim, 
 By instinct driven. What is praise or blame 
 To him who stands upon the mystery 
 
 Of Hope and Dread, of Love and Death, and calls 
 
 His fellows to unbolt the gates of gloom, 
 
 In which they're prisoned ; Aye ! who shows a 
 
 key 
 
 He thinks would bring them from the crypts of creeds 
 To Nature's harvests, rustling with good deeds. 
 Even though 'tis mirage fills his eye with bloom 
 Beyond Faith's walls within is Misery. 
 
 Here fantasies and logic are combined, 
 By nature-taught, assimilating brain, 
 Which seeks for cause in every consequent, 
 And has no faith, but in experiment, 
 
 Sees nothing sacred in what men have shrined, 
 Has prayed with Jesus, and has curst with Cain. 
 
 Heard Darwin mourn how Rosseau's babies died ; 
 
 Knows Babeuf perished, for his love had fists. 
 Has fathomed on the coral reefs of thought, 
 The depth of bigot waves that o'er them float, 
 Saw Voltaire growing out the turbid tide, 
 And Jefferson, upbuilt on Rabelais' jests. 
 
 Something of each it has materialized ; 
 
 Has talked with Nihilists, with Fourier slept ; 
 Has dined with Malthus, seen Mazzini's steel ; 
 
Prefatory. 11 
 
 Felt Louis tremble, heard Robespierre squeal. 
 From all that's curst, and all that's canonized, 
 Has jumbled words, and this expression shaped. 
 
 'Tis concentration of the myriad dreams 
 
 Have fallen through ages, on man's troubled 
 
 sleep. 
 
 If through the horn or ivory gates they tiy 
 Is still the argument. While some decry 
 Their substance, others see the gleams 
 
 Of brighter future through life's tempests sweep. 
 
 Little of Ingersoll ; his widening vest 
 
 Contains, I think, the bulk he has to spare. 
 Full fed, a Berkshire discontent will lie 
 Grumbling and grunting in his narrow sty ; 
 I build a sheep-fold ; he'd as loud protest, 
 If its full ricks gave all an equal share. 
 
 A fat man's mind is fat. A greasy world' 
 The chubby Cherub on rich gravies fed, 
 With brain of adipose, contents ; but grim 
 Starvation proves to bony Seraphim. 
 
 Lard is not sentient. Nerves need friction. Oiled 
 By the gross stomach, the absorbing head 
 
 Reasons to their periphery the skin. 
 
 And bounds its vision with what's good to eat. 
 'Twill sight concentrate on the brimming trough, 
 Deny the pail above, and ribald scoff 
 
 From roly-poly shoats wakes laughter's din, 
 
 At thought of Conscious Power that gave the 
 meat. 
 
12 Prefatory. 
 
 Methinks God's love was there, though Joshua 
 
 smote 
 
 The lapping young of tigerish Canaanites : 
 A better breed, perhaps, than they, the Jews, 
 (That's where I'd quibble, but I can't refuse 
 It possible) and wise Love would devote 
 
 Cub with its dam, their fledglings with the kites. 
 
 if he regrets to see an adult Czar 
 
 Escape the Nihilist, a fasting week 
 Might clear his vision. If from cross-carved womb 
 The knife sent pulpy fiendlings to their doom, 
 
 The hunger-sharpened intellect would not scare, 
 For Progress loves to hear their dying squeak. 
 
 Who strikes a tyrant, strikes in self-defence, 
 For he's attacked whose fellow is assailed. 
 But they who dare annihilate the race 
 That's born for rule, by God's transmitted grace, 
 Aid the next age, destroy the testaments 
 
 By which wolves' rights are on wolf-cubs 
 entailed. 
 
 Ah ! Ingersoll. Why choke yourself with dust, 
 
 Groping from light for mummied Bull-gods, while 
 The pyramids that shrined them, still enfold 
 Their spirit, in curse-procreating Gold. 
 
 Wouldst rid earth of them ? Here your lever 
 
 thrust ; 
 
 Power, Faith-fed, based on Metal, claims your 
 skill. 
 
Prefatory. 13 
 
 That's why I think 'tis right that muscled brain, 
 
 Should grant no quarter to fat-stomached jowl ; 
 And that 'tis time the hungry stork had ceased 
 Attempting share the fox's plattered feast, 
 And left him in his domicile, the Fane, 
 
 Where mind-starved Toil eats with the paunchy 
 Cowl. 
 
 How dare I say, that I have reached to light 
 In this agglomerate of distorted thought : 
 I only know the idea's in me grown, 
 An evolution of the Cause Unknown 
 Of all existence. That it aids the Right 
 
 Or Wrong, I know not. I have only wrought 
 
 Material as the All-creative Power 
 
 Here forms a porcupine and there a dove. 
 Instinct, selection, circumstance and man, 
 Alter, debase, improve on Nature's plan. 
 I know not if I've sown, or weed or flower, 
 Have scattered seed of hate or bloom of love. 
 
 Nor know I, if the crucible of brain 
 
 Has separated vulgar pyrites, 
 Or virgin gold. But this I know, that worth 
 Is born of need, that nuggets hid in earth 
 Were valueless as cowries till a man, 
 Before them abject, bent adoring knees. 
 
 The boiling blood of an unlicensed youth 
 
 With vapors clouding sense, and marring [sight, 
 
14 Prefatory. 
 
 Is chill by years and creeps through sluggish veins, 
 But in the eve of life the mind attains 
 Some faint perception of eternal truth, 
 
 And eyes unfevered, harmonize with light. 
 
 Life's dusty highway grimes its traveler, 
 
 Plodding through jarring crowds his bickering 
 
 path. 
 
 Who would be clean, must seek its grassy lanes. 
 In their clear springs must cleanse his guilty stains 
 When shadows lengthen and the sunset's near, 
 For souls, like bodies, should be washed for 
 death. 
 
 And I, who've striven to efface the soils, 
 Of sordid, selfish, and discordant days, 
 And know the enjoyment cleanliness bestows, 
 Must, 'ere the hastening glooms bring me repose, 
 From leafy covert beckon him who toils, 
 To shaded rests, and water-freshened ways. 
 
 I know the man who first affronted God, 
 
 Was he who first walled in a plot of ground 
 And called the enclosure his, for his the expense, 
 Then taught his brothers to respect his fence ; 
 Persuaded them to join the wretched fraud, 
 And wound the earth by building village pound. 
 
 I know that Man is Nature's rightful heir 
 
 Of all amassed by Greed, by Toil unearned ; 
 From Pisgah's height, beyond the brawling ford 
 Of Jordan, I can see the pagan horde 
 
Prefatory. 15 
 
 Float feudal banners o'er the lands they share, 
 And know, like Canaanites, they've but so- 
 journed 
 
 In Law's walled cities, till Toil's nation grew, 
 
 Through Egypt's long harass, and painful path 
 Through wilderness, to knowledge of its wrong. 
 Aye, even now, I see the grime-stained throng, 
 Eager to cross, impatient, wait review, 
 
 While Joshua voices God, and wakes their wrath. 
 
 I know if Man, not ready for a step, 
 
 Has been a dullard at Dame Nature's school 
 That though with Jesus' knotted cord I goad, 
 He'll see Chimaeras in the surveyed road, 
 And like a frightened baby, backward creep, 
 At Progress piping melancholy pule. 
 
 Progress must fit the time. In vain essay 
 
 To raise a harvest on unfurrowed ground, 
 And Nature's force is wasted if the sail 
 Is set to edge it ; zephyr then or gale 
 
 May woo, or bluster. Cogs have holiday, 
 The hopper grows adust, no meal is ground. 
 
 So, if my thought is born too soon, because 
 
 No man will nurse it, it must die, perforce. 
 If mental opium, I have smoked and seen 
 A mawkish vision on fantastic screen, 
 
 And each sane soul my rascal rhyme inveighs, 
 In either case, why should I feel remorse ? 
 
16 Prefatory. 
 
 I have faint hope that Lazarus will hear ; 
 
 I know full well, if Dives does, I'm damned 
 All round the compass. Well, my days are short 
 And gray my head, but grayer far, my heart. 
 I've borne his blows, I can despise his jeer 
 O ! Lazarus, hearken ! 'Tis for you, I'm shamed ! 
 
 Yet, he will not, for keenest thought can't pierce 
 
 The semi-conscious, gross-grained pachyderm. 
 Wisdom ne'er works directly on the mass, 
 Whose brutal passions Reason can not face ; 
 Fit but for conflict, noisy, jarring, fierce, 
 Unlicked, unwashed, with intellect in germ. 
 
 For all the multitudinous expanse 
 
 Of souls untaught, spreads bare and dessicate, 
 A void Zahara, under science' sun, 
 Incapable of growth, a dismal zone 
 
 Which ne'er felt rainfall on its seedless sands, 
 And swallows every rill would irrigate. 
 
 Could Lazarus think, what countless books he'd 
 
 read ! 
 
 If he had time, how quickly would he learn ! 
 But long hours' toil, and fainting overwork 
 A thousand brains leaves waste, that one may shirk, 
 Though Hygeia begs him sweat, and swears its 
 
 need, 
 He's sick with spending, what they die to earn. 
 
 For health is the reward of exercise, 
 
 While toil consumes, and luxury cankers life ; 
 
Prefatory. 17 
 
 Each earns his doom who Nature disobeys, 
 The fool who suffers, and the fool who preys ; 
 And suicidal laughter, born of sighs, 
 
 Jars Heaven with peeans of earth's endless 
 strife. 
 
 Ah ! if dull tools a poor mechanic make, 
 
 If dastard he, who wields a pointless spear, 
 How can law-givers with greed's blunted brain, 
 A comprehensive view. of Right attain, 
 
 Who at each movement of the people quake 
 For plunder won by shame, is held in fear. 
 
 If from my mind has sprung a natural force 
 
 To aid my fellows climbing to the Light, 
 Or if brain soaked in bilious discontent, 
 Has railing thus at Order found a vent, 
 If as a seer I'm wise, or crazed and coarse, 
 I plead for love, or angry men excite, 
 
 What I have thought, I've writ, felt what I've 
 
 said ; 
 
 Bruised and in pain 'tis Nature bids me cry. 
 Though all mankind in rage and horror scream, 
 My tongue must tell my vision, pen my dream, 
 Nor from anath'mas will I shield my head, 
 Though all the earth proclaim my truth a lie. 
 
 My thought is born, and claims its utterance ; 
 I'll speak it, though it floats on idle winds ; 
 I'll speak it outright, though the thick thronged 
 
 square 
 Mock it as craziness, or vacant stare ; 
 
18 Prefatory. 
 
 Music to me, though it be dissonance 
 To every ear, and discord to all minds. 
 
 For I, although a dwarf, am sure I've climbed 
 
 The shoulders of the Titans. I can clod 
 The low, free-pass-won Heaven that men attain, 
 Denying Life its instincts, Toil his gain, 
 
 And will, because I like to. I have rhymed 
 My pellets. Stand from under, Man-made God. 
 
 Beyond the vision of the pessimist, 
 
 I see Earth's buzzing strifes engender loves, 
 See Sun-warmed worlds evolve of nebula, 
 See breathing raptures springing from decay ; 
 Through every change see Nature's laws persist, 
 Compelling Chaos' whir to Order's grooves. 
 
THE PEOLOGUE. 
 
 Tumbling on Time's tempestuous tides, 
 The world through weary ages rides, 
 And, deep within its foetid hold, 
 In darkness packs the slaves of Gold. 
 Since Day was born the unwieldy bulk 
 Of the storm-driven, battered hulk, 
 With rudder useless, compass lost, 
 Is on the scud-capped billows tossed. 
 
 Deep in their troughs it straining rolls, 
 
 With smothering freight of famished souls, 
 
 Uncheered by hope of brighter lot, 
 
 " Born but to propagate and rot " 
 
 As fish in subterranean streams, 
 
 Unvisited by gladdening beams, 
 
 Prisoned in gloom, lose optic nerve 
 
 When vision can no uses serve 
 
 Their eyeless minds no gleam discern, 
 
 Though Thought may flash and Science burn ; 
 
 By ages of Oppression's night, 
 
 So long deprived of Reason's light, 
 
 That even the power is lost, of sight. 
 
 Its engines, whose resistless force, 
 Heart lit, might drive them on their course, 
 With dampened fires, grew foul with rust, 
 In the dank air of noisome lust, 
 
20 Earth's wealth producers, 
 
 Whose dense, mephitic vapors quench 
 
 All purer love with stifling stench, 
 
 Until each generation see's 
 
 A viler stand between its knees, 
 
 As if a race of foul Yahoos 
 
 Degenerated breeding Jews. 
 
 Since Savagery has "no name 
 
 For crimes, whose purple blazons shame ; 
 
 Nor can a hunger-dazed, dim eye, 
 
 Through the wild, driving mists descry 
 
 A star, the enshrouding gloom to cheer, 
 
 Or point them whitherward to steer. 
 
 Thro' op'ning seams the turbid waves 
 Engulf them in unnoted graves. 
 Toil's tears their hardened muscles drip, 
 To keep afloat their prison ship, 
 As the dumb, wearied wretches ply 
 The jarring pumps, in dread to die. 
 O'er Hate's cold, lifeless, frigid zone, 
 Chartless they drift through seas unknown, 
 While their discordant cries of pain 
 Are drowned in Luxury's glad refrain 
 For the bright cabins ring with mirth, 
 And swear it is a happy earth. 
 
 Such lives they lead as those who lodge 
 In Venice, with her doting Doge, 
 Power's image ; whose authority 
 Was held by the mysterious " Three." 
 His gilded palace based on slime 
 On Oubliettes built, awarded crime 
 
Live in misery. 21 
 
 Of discontent with purse-ruled state, 
 A prison 'neath the waves that beat 
 Around its huge, basaltic pride, 
 In glooms, dank with the turbid tide ; 
 Was roofed with dismal, noisome caves 
 Where torture's engines, worked by slaves, 
 Resounded shrieks of wretches doomed 
 To breathe in pain, from life entombed 
 Impatient, urging fate, with cries, 
 For passage o'er the Bridge of Sighs ; 
 While all between the dismal cells 
 Above, below wealth-laden walls, 
 Where power and gold with beauty met, 
 Rang with the dancers' pattering feet, 
 Twirling in pleasure's careless round 
 Unheard their groans, in music drowned. 
 
 O, Toil ! what power has thus immured 
 Your body, and your mind obscured ? 
 As though Fate held you under ban 
 A fungous growth of mouldering man, 
 Existent on your own decay ; 
 Aspiring as your kindred clay ; 
 Pasted like lichen on a rock ; 
 When each should, as a sturdy oak, 
 Control the soil its rootlets tap, 
 Thence drawing germinating sap. 
 
 Say ! is it by decree divine, 
 Your stomach rattles on your spine ? 
 That you, from age to age, are sure 
 Of nothing, but that you endure, 
 
22 Has G-od so intended ? 
 
 And live, as though the desert sands 
 
 Were harvested for your demands ? 
 
 While emerald wealth springs from the loam 
 
 Around the hut you call a home ; 
 
 Rented of some gor-bellied sot, 
 
 Coarse, truculent, unfeeling, hot, 
 
 With bailiff slinking at his back 
 
 Should you, upon the gale day, lack 
 
 The sum he claims for leave to stand 
 
 Upon God's earth ? No ; on his land ! 
 
 Has some dread Demiurgus curled 
 His frightful coils about your world, 
 Forcing the soul of nature from 
 Her jellied, granite-banded frame ; 
 And pain, eternal, hopeless, wrought 
 By fsecal matter, stifling thought? 
 
 Is it by Nature's law you wail 
 In endless misery; and quail 
 With shrinking shoulders, quivering lip, 
 As Helots, at a Spartan's whip, 
 Before the feasting few and dare" 
 Scarce join your knotty hands in prayer 
 To Paul's and Calvin's clay-grimed God 
 In his huge pottery, gone mad ? 
 Who, fiendish in his raving zeal, 
 Forms on his swift revolving wheel, 
 Pots and spittoons in vilest delf 
 By myriads to o'er weight his shelf; 
 While scarce a mould of Parian ware, 
 Escapes, unbroke, his furnace fire. 
 
.ZVb, Man, a self -tormentor. 23 
 
 Not so, O, Brethren ! Reason shows 
 Man works his own unceasing woes. 
 The laws of every state declare 
 Their makers in the men who share 
 Toil's plunder, as they grant his gain 
 To pitiless and scheming brain. 
 
 'Tis we, ourselves, that frame and build 
 The hold, with want and squalor filled, 
 Whence Labor, feeding all the earth, 
 Harvests his own perpetual dearth. 
 'Tis we who gild and ornament 
 The cabins, where the insolent 
 And thankless Dives holds his court, 
 Making Toil's agony his sport. 
 
 Man's laws are the dumb-waiters lift 
 With silent speed the gains of thrift, 
 To feed his fellow voyagers 
 Through life, as first-class passengers, 
 With every cate can please their taste, 
 Who never know what 't is to fast ; 
 While he, in steerage, dines on " duff," 
 And thanks them when he gets enough. 
 
 In crass and torpid ignorance, 
 
 In superstitious reverence 
 
 Of creeds effete and blasphemous, 
 
 Labor, a brawny Lazarus, 
 
 Pigs in his narrow, reeking sty, 
 
 As 't were his natural destiny ; 
 
 Snores when he's full ; a-hungered, squeals 
 
 Up the hatchway for hogwash meals 
 
24 Jesus, the /Socialist, shows escape? 
 
 When, had he sense to know his right, 
 And courage to direct his might, 
 One gesture of his arm could sweep 
 His masters from the groaning ship. 
 
 Rebel ! O, Toilers ! Seize the deck ; 
 
 Or perish in the shattered wreck. 
 
 / 
 
 Let the 'dull furnace glow with heat, 
 Flaming from hearts whose rhythmic beat 
 Pulsates the quenchless fires of love, 
 Through Man on earth to God above. 
 When that the ponderous engines feel, 
 Swift through the billows rolls the wheel ; 
 And the heart-driven brain will force, 
 Through every obstacle, its course. 
 
 Go ! find your compass in His life, 
 
 Who loved His foes and hated strife, 
 
 Yet waged incessant, bitter war 
 
 With every wrong that Man would mar ; 
 
 Who poured His curses like a flood 
 
 On those who dared oppress the good ; 
 
 Who tells you Heaven on Earth is won 
 
 By violence, and that alone 
 
 That you must storm its walls, since Hate 
 
 And Mammon lock and guard its gate. 
 
 Then grasp the helm of sturdy will, 
 That knows no fear and dreads no ill, 
 And Man has gained that land of Hope, 
 Where Reason's highest flight finds scope. 
 
His ffeaven is Fraternity. 25 
 
 When thro' his race is spread his leaven, 
 Earth gains her port, and floats in Heaven. 
 
 The soul of power is Intellect ; 
 Which needs Love only to direct 
 Its motion, and its end's in view. 
 What Man can think, that Man can do. 
 
 Up, Brothers ! Sons of God ! He gave 
 
 You Earth to revel on why slave ? 
 
 Blood, only, wins your right to taste 
 
 Milk welling from your mother's breast. 
 
 Birth-right, inalienable ! Room 
 
 On it for all her teeming womb 
 
 Ripens to life, and anguish tears 
 
 The fevered glands denied her heirs. 
 
 The love that casts out fear, alone 
 
 Can pluck fierce Mammon from his throne. 
 
 Up ! Brothers, up ! A day of Storm ! 
 
 And lo ! the Heavens grow sweet and warm, 
 
 Life never gave such raptured bliss 
 
 As his who, dying, feels the kiss 
 
 Of future generations sip 
 
 Love's honey from his writhing lip. 
 
 Up ! Brothers. Earth's Maternity 
 Demands of Man, Fraternity, 
 And G-od's all-loving Fatherhood 
 Is known but ly Man's Brotherhood. 
 
THE TELEPHONE TALKS. 
 
 In radiant Sunlight, gorgeous bloom 
 Sheds through the air its rich perfume ; 
 Spontaneous beauty gilds all use ; 
 Nature distills her rarest juice 
 Thro' tree and herb, thro' root and flower, 
 Responsive to her lover's power, 
 And feels through every fibre run, 
 Life-giving impulse of the Sun. 
 
 But, Light excluded, every shoot 
 Ripens in gloom its bitter fruit ; 
 And pallid, hueless plants are bred, 
 Their veins with acrid poisons fed. 
 Conditions changed, the self-same soil 
 JUvolves the beautiful, and vile. 
 
 Man, like the soil, has seeds of both, 
 
 And Nature's laws control their growth. 
 
 The Microcosm, in him blend 
 
 A foetal Angel, foetal Fiend. 
 
 If Love's liofht nourish heart and brain, 
 
 O ' 
 
 To Angel's stature he'll attain ; 
 While demons greet him as their kin, 
 Whose darkened soul is dwarfed by sin. 
 
 All life 's but ripened matter ; shown 
 Its noblest form when Man was grown ; 
 
28 The causes of human suffering 
 
 Earth's highest animal's the loam 
 
 Where Heaven's seed finds destined home ; 
 
 Whence it may spring to flower above 
 
 Her limits, redolent of Love ; 
 
 Or rot, if Want and Hatred fill, 
 
 With venom, the malignant soil. 
 
 The frolic air, electric fed, 
 By which the Sun and Earth are wed ; 
 Her marriage ring, through which unite 
 The craving mould and force of light ; 
 Whose chemic power, from bleak sun-ray, 
 Evolves the energy of day 
 Whence the glad universe is rife 
 With infinite forms of joyous life 
 By wak'ning current unendowed. 
 Beneath the poles, is Nature's shroud, 
 Death's empty eyes forever glare 
 Earth shudders as her lover's stare, 
 Embrace refuses to her prayer : 
 And ice-perpetual palls in gloom 
 Nature's unquickened, barren womb. 
 
 So, in Love's transports, souls aspire 
 Toward the Uncreated Fire ; 
 Bathe in its beams, and germinate, 
 To flower beyond the realms of Hate. 
 Their lives are zephyrs, known and felt 
 Thro' the abodes of grief and guilt ; 
 Fanning the weary, raising hope 
 In the dim caverns where men mope, 
 All fibreless,. exsanguine, pale, 
 
Shown by lessons from Nature. 29 
 
 Until in rapture they inhale 
 That brighter air, that never shone 
 Upon a temple, fane or throne ; 
 Far from the hurricanes of creeds ; 
 Filled with the odors of good deeds. 
 
 And so in torpor lies the heart, 
 Shriveled in Mammon's sordid mart 
 As in Greed's chill and callous strife, 
 Perish the seeds of nobler life. 
 The brutal, brawling multitude 
 Exalts the base, and spurns the good ; 
 Creed's nightmare spectres, cold and gaunt, 
 The barren soul with terrors haunt, 
 And Hate hastes to the cross to nail 
 Who dares his frozen sleep assail. 
 
 The limpid stream, born of sweet springs, 
 That thro' gay meadows purling sings, 
 And roots of scented lilies laves 
 As Naiads frolic in its waves, 
 In glancing joy swift turns the wheel 
 Which grinds for man his wholesome meal ; 
 But, checked, its free, hilarious course, 
 Its outlet dammed, becomes his curse 
 A steaming marsh, miasma rife, 
 Whose reeking vapors threaten life. 
 
 Disease and crime the world would fly, 
 And Eden spread beneath the sky ; 
 All Earth with Heaven's warmth would glow, 
 Did Life in natural channels flow. 
 
30 By G-reed, not G-od, the earth is curst. 
 
 But dead to Love, and ruled by Hate, 
 Her tideless waves in filth stagnate ; 
 Hell's fevers riot in her veins, 
 And filial blood her bosom stains ; 
 Rank poisons her baked breasts distil, 
 Pulsating to Ambition's thrill. 
 
 Food full, when she from chaos burst, 
 By Greed, not God, the earth is curst. 
 The aeons she thro' space has rolled, 
 Have seen unquenched Man's thirst for Gold ; 
 Bright dross, which neither clothes nor feeds, 
 Relieves Man's wants, nor aids his needs, 
 By some dull juggle of the fates, 
 Starves human loves, feeds human hates. 
 
 Since first Man's foot her verdure trod, 
 Since lust of gain first turned her sod, 
 Mammon has ruled the Earth her God ; 
 And self-made men, his votaries 
 Blind to Man's tears, deaf to his cries ; 
 Insane with morbid selfishness, 
 Which knows no end, but to amass 
 For warp and woof of Mammon's thought, 
 Of but one fibre, self, is wrought 
 By theft or war, by law or fraud, 
 O'er Labor's corses, hellwards plod. 
 
 Whence comes its pestilential power, 
 On Life unnumbered ills to shower 
 In the bright metal gleams no trace 
 Of gnawing mordant to efface 
 
Human law sanctions crime. 31 
 
 All love, all pity from the mind, 
 And leave Man alien to his kind ? 
 
 By Law its dreadful force is given, 
 
 To blast an earth that else were Heaven. 
 
 Man's brutal intellect, warped by greed, 
 
 Makes it, hermaphroditic, breed ; 
 
 Its litter, Interest, must be fed 
 
 Ere Labor touch his daily bread. 
 
 This busy hive, the World's in debt, 
 Mortgaged its future toil and sweat ; 
 Insensate greed, inhuman craze, 
 The orbed planet dares appraise, 
 Malaria filled, weeds overgrown, 
 By whirlwinds harvested, wind sown ; 
 While Labor, owner of the world, 
 By Law from his domain is hurled, 
 And abject, clothed in rags and vice, 
 Begs at the gates of Paradise, 
 Where Capital entrenched stands, 
 Deriding his gnarled, pleading hands 
 Refusing entrance, tho' the}*- spread 
 Before his eyes th' Almighty's deed. 
 
 Power, to perpetuate his hold, 
 
 Borrows a g-eneration's gold 
 
 Compels a coming century 
 
 To brace his purple anarchy. 
 
 Labor pays interest on the expense 
 
 Of trampled grain and camp-burnt fence, 
 
 And leaves its principal to gall 
 
EartTis peace is endless war 
 
 The shoulders of his heirs, who crawl 
 Abject before their plunderers, 
 As did their seed-debasing sires, 
 When Glory led the trooped Earthworms 
 Wriggling to death, in uniforms. 
 
 War stalks on Credit o'er the Earth, 
 And the fat Banker's chuckling mirth 
 Is echoed thro' the lowest Hell, 
 As Death's loans at a premium sell. 
 When Usury, from the peasant's hoard, 
 Entices flames to forge the sword, 
 The wretches who in anguish writhe 
 On battle fields, are scarce a tithe 
 Of those War's fiercer engines slay, 
 When wages-slaves become his prey, 
 And his scythed chariot's wider swarth 
 Cuts down the workman at his hearth ; 
 Whose hungry entrails yield their food 
 To traffickers in tears and blood, , 
 While Interest pours in Luxury's lap 
 The profits of Man's annual crop. 
 
 This the cause not Law divine 
 Workers eat lees, and drones drink wine ; 
 That nobles guard his restless dream, 
 Whose brow's begirt with diadem 
 A daemon in a human skin, 
 Surfeit with cates and palled with sin 
 'Gainst whose lust, virtue has no fence, 
 Honored, when ravished by a prince ; 
 Before whose frown scared Justice flies, 
 
5 ] Twixt man and Man for "profit" 33 
 
 As crimes with crimes antagonize, 
 Upholding over Man the throne, 
 As rounding arch supports keystone. 
 
 Aye, Profit, fortified by laws 
 
 This is, and this alone, the cause 
 
 That starving Labor toils in pain, 
 
 On offal fed, for Usury's gain. 
 
 For, keeping step to fife and drum, 
 
 Lean Famine ravishes his home, 
 
 Piecemeal consumes his prattling babe, 
 
 By rickets, pustulence, and scab. 
 
 To Brothel hales his blooming maid 
 
 For prostitution is the trade, 
 
 Whose wages Mammon still concedes 
 
 To Beauty, when for life she pleads 
 
 And invoice furnishes to Lust 
 
 Of rounded limb and budding bust, 
 
 Of carmine lip and tinted cheek ; 
 
 With liquid eyes that love bespeak, 
 
 Designed to smile in motherhood 
 
 Upon a sturdy, dimpled brood ; 
 
 And bears their value in a rag 
 
 To muzzled pimp and scowling hag 
 
 For the ugly, base, deformed, and old 
 
 Are favorites of the God of Gold 
 
 Where, slobbered by disease, she weds 
 
 With syphilitic death, and spreads 
 
 Contagion thro' her sisters' beds, 
 
 Whence scores of tainted embryos, 
 
 Thro' whom the adulterous poison flows, 
 
 Are generate to avenge her woes. 
 
84 Panaceas. 
 
 Then drunken, rotten, cursing, dies, 
 While Hades rings with joyous cries : 
 " Lo ! War has won another prize ! " 
 While Usury shrieks, " Not his alone ! 
 He tears the flesh, I gnaw the bone ! " 
 
 The world's in debt ; that growing wen 
 Sucks sustenance from the toil of Man, 
 And Usurers frame the law which drains 
 The iron from his anemied veins. 
 This is the sick world's dire complaint, 
 It moans this noisome tumor's taint ; 
 Filth pouring thro' the springs of life, 
 To reappear in hate and strife. 
 Its acrid humors, poison rife, 
 In stinging ulcers break, which quacks, 
 To heal, their grandam's book-lore tax, 
 And irredeemable greenbacks 
 Prescribe, the poisoned blood to thin, 
 That Capital new gains may win. 
 As market price each day is ruled 
 By Stewart, Vanderbilt, and Gould, 
 'Till Labor knows not if he'll crunch 
 At noon a dinner or a lunch. 
 
 The grief's too large ; no philophaster 
 Can heal it with a greenback plaster. 
 The path of justice is so clear 
 That he who hesitates to steer 
 The course her compass indicates, 
 Nears error's rocks each hour he waits 
 There, even a donbt confessed is strong, 
 Indubitable proof of wrong. 
 
Fiat money no benefit to Labor. 35 
 
 Wisdom is first from folly learned, 
 
 But by mistakes truth is discerned ; 
 
 Yet wisdom in adversity 
 
 Is folly's worst perversity, 
 
 And growing servile wiseacre 
 
 Would now inflate Great God ! what for ? 
 
 To double price ? Contraction's law 
 
 Has stuffed with goods the cormorant's maw ; 
 
 And fiat-men need only wait 
 
 His bonds foreclosed, he will inflate, 
 
 And thus disgorge on stupid Toil, 
 
 With freer sale, fierce Usury's spoil. 
 
 What benefit would that bestow 
 
 On men who neither lend nor owe ? 
 
 Oh ! Friends, the gangrene claims a knife, 
 
 When Death invades the " Means of life." 
 
 Political economists, 
 Thick-witted, stubborn egotists, 
 Thick ointments spread upon each sore, 
 Which nature forms, his blood to cure. 
 Huge thronging Lazar houses grin 
 Complacent at the peer's desmesne, 
 While thro' their windows, dim and bare, 
 The law-made paupers, hopeless stare. 
 On lands untilled, protect by wall, 
 All viewless, but impassable ; 
 Which Nadir joins to Zenith, strong 
 As Hell can plan, and build a wrong. 
 Lest frenzied Toil, in pain rebel, 
 Such anodynes his tortures quell, 
 And thirteen pence a-week support 
 
36 State charities a curse to Labor. 
 
 The antipodes of Lord and Court 
 Forced by their bailiffs from the hoard 
 The Serf has from con-acre stored 
 To shield his gray hairs from " Relief! " 
 In hunger binding each thin sheaf, 
 Left to reward back-breaking spade, 
 Its cess, tithe, rent, and impost paid. 
 
 What threat has Law, that he need fear 
 Whose childrens' moans assail his ear 
 Wailing for bread, and craving pence 
 From chariots driven at his expense ; 
 Life has no dread for him who dies 
 To manhood daily, while his cries 
 Are answered by new Laws that stamp 
 On Yeomens' brows the brand of Tramp. 
 
 Labor, the nation's living blood, 
 Corrupted grows when unemployed ; 
 Thus check the virus, and amain 
 It clogs each artery and vein, 
 Until the scurvied peoples tear 
 Their fest'ring flesh in sheer despair. 
 If then the overburdened State 
 Dares not its bane repudiate, 
 If Mammon rules the purchased poll, 
 And laws obey the wen's control ; 
 Wealth digs its own dishonored grave, 
 While fires, petrolean, o'er it rave, 
 Or Toil becomes a hopeless slave. 
 Nutrition ceases ; swift decay, 
 Unchecked, the vitals makes its prey, 
 
How priests belie G-od. 37 
 
 Brute Gods, herd brutish beasts, and scan 
 With anger in their ranks, a Man, 
 Till Barbarism hastes to bless, 
 States sunk in putrid rottenness. 
 
 What mockery then, the priest's pretence 
 
 Unraveller of Omnipotence, 
 
 Whose courtly tongue in unctuous phrase 
 
 Expounds the mysteries of God's ways, 
 
 Whose hypocritic piety 
 
 Imputes man's crimes to Deity, 
 
 For stipend preaching dull content 
 
 To Famine by misgovernment, 
 
 Canting of other worlds, the bliss, 
 
 To men who" re damned by greed in this. 
 
 O ! prattlers of that other shore, 
 Man's weary ear offend no more, 
 Nor soothe him with your pipe's dull strain, 
 Who knows the sources of his pain ; 
 Pure Life-blood courses in his veins, 
 Where Labor eats what Labor gains ; 
 Prate not of ills must be endured, 
 Disease, when diagnosed, is cured. 
 
 But Labor, like Prometheus, cries 
 
 His agony to jeering skies, 
 
 Since Mammon reared his hideous throne 
 
 And weighs in gold, man's brain and bone. 
 
 From frosty Caucasus his chain 
 
 Rings his eternal gnawing pain, 
 
 As his self-growing entrails feed 
 
 The vulture beaks of rav'ning greed ; 
 
38 Property is robbery. 
 
 And all the wealth his horny hands 
 
 Wrest from machines or drag from lands, 
 
 Through Profit's channels crams the guts 
 
 Of bloated, gorged aristocrats, 
 
 Whose brutish forms broadcloths disguise 
 
 From undiscriminating eyes, 
 
 As through the marts they pride-full roll, 
 
 Legged stomachs void of love or soul, 
 
 Swelled shapeless by their cursed gain, 
 
 Tortured from muscle, racked from brain. 
 
 Earth's hoarded wealth is Labor's spoil, 
 The product of man's stolen toil ; 
 But honey stored, on which drones thrive 
 Rulers and masters of the hive. 
 
 O ! Brother Toilers, 'toil no more 
 
 For drones that rob your hard-earned store ; 
 
 Go to the bees : from Nature learn 
 
 You own the wealth, your labors earn ; 
 
 Frame her just edict into law, 
 
 Honey shall glut no idle maw ; 
 
 Who will not work, he shall not eat ; 
 
 With justice blent, revenge is sweet ; 
 
 'Tis more than pleasure, when you feel 
 
 The snake's crushed head beneath your heel ; 
 
 'Tis more than bliss to twitch the cord 
 
 That swings the sheep-dog from the sward ; 
 
 'Tis rapture when the baited shark 
 
 Lies gasping, helpless on your bark ; 
 
 'Tis comfort from the trough to kick 
 
 The hog that all the swill would lick. 
 
The lesson of the Snow. 39 
 
 Out with your stings ; let no drone live 
 To crowd your cells, and rob your hive. 
 
 Snow-flakes an equal carpet spread 
 On field and forest, lawn and mead ; 
 Red-mittened children happy, whoop 
 To see th' increasing snowball scoop 
 Sun-softened lustre from the ground, 
 And shape the quick-dissolving mound. 
 
 Upon the play-green, 'spite the game, 
 
 The wealth of snow remains the same ; 
 
 The gathered heap, a Yanderbilt 
 
 His makers fright, the snow-man built ; 
 
 The naked mould proves all he gained, 
 
 To all the play-ground appertained. 
 
 If here 'tis heaped ; lo ! there, 'tis bared, 
 
 What Nature gave, all equal shared. 
 
 Wealth aggregated, has not grown, 
 Its increase is from seed that's sown ; 
 'Tis only heaped ; in one " Receipt " 
 A hundred emptied granaries meet. 
 
 The ocean's force, immane, is spent 
 To keep a level. Discontent 
 Surges upon each bellowing tide, 
 As waves on waves, unending ride 
 Each other down in wrath to reach 
 With emerald floods the fading beach, 
 And cover with their spuming roar 
 The angry, wide, resounding shore. 
 
40 The Ocean's teaching 
 
 'Spoiling their shuddering foam, the Pole 
 High heaps them on its frozen mole ; 
 The ocean's aggregate's unchanged, 
 Tho' on the Arctic Coast are ranged 
 Ice mountains, till the flattened zone 
 Shows rounded, shadowed on the moon. 
 
 At Greed's cold robbery in ire 
 
 The billows with the sun conspire ; 
 
 He 'venges aggregating night, 
 
 With his long day's continuous light, 
 
 And aids them, as they storming tear 
 
 Huge icebergs from their sleety lair ; 
 
 Their might, forever furious, rives 
 
 The monsters, as it tireless drives 
 
 Them tumbling over ocean's plain, 
 
 Stubborn and dragging, till they wane 
 
 And perish in the Sun's hot beam. 
 
 For them, Hate glowing, though each gleam 
 
 They wither under, serves to prove 
 
 Greed's aggregate 's destroyed by Love. 
 
 So Law, than polar currents, cold, 
 Pours gain on wealth, and gelid gold 
 Draws increment from frozen men. 
 So Nature, furious, seeks a plan, 
 To spoil the spoiler. Ocean's surge 
 That never tires, is men who urge 
 Their fellows, as the tides the sea, 
 To fret in Inequality, 
 To force on Law, Fraternity. 
 
 They've moved the Iceberg ! It's begun 
 Reluctant journey to the Sun ! 
 
That tyranny is born of wealth ; 41 
 
 The wealth that Toil creates is massed 
 
 By callous Greed, till Man aghast, 
 
 Beholds a daemon from the heap, 
 
 By stealthy laws, toward him creep, 
 
 Dissatisfied, until it grace 
 
 Its curst accretion with his face, 
 
 In which all light of love is quenched 
 
 By abject serf-tears, vilely drenched. 
 
 Then for his Life he strikes. Debate 
 He can not with embodied Hate, 
 And though the fiend in terror cries, 
 "Let us alone ! " his plunder flies 
 On the glad winds in smoke and flame, 
 Heaven-curst, too foul for man to claim. 
 
 The wealth that mocks your rags and grime 
 Was yours, yea, is; no lapse of time 
 Title to plunder consecrates, 
 For sleepless Justice grimly waits 
 Till Time avenge her broken laws, 
 And what he can't restore, destroys. 
 
 For centuries Moloch heaped the spoil 
 Of Afric's patient Sons of Toil, 
 For gain the marriage bed defiled, 
 The mother robbed of sucking child, 
 And strove by fetter, lash, and chain, 
 To transform men to brutes, for gain. 
 Drove education from his realm, 
 Drove pity, mercy, conscience, shame, 
 4 
 
42 That Nature revolts at it, 
 
 And swung his cotton-plaited knout 
 At God and Nature, with a shout, 
 Defying both to loose his hold 
 On Toil, by law convert to Gold. 
 
 Vengeance but waits. We pay the debt 
 That Slavery massed from unpaid sweat. 
 With every tear Toil's sad eyes shed, 
 With every- drop his torn back bled, 
 With every groan his swart breast rent, 
 Our tears and groans, and blood were blent. 
 
 For each black babe, by Moloch won 
 Caucasian mother mourned a son ; 
 Our ardent youth, corrupt and marred, 
 By foul war's leprous fever scarred, 
 Avenge the tortured, servile hosts 
 We metamorphosed into beasts. 
 
 The crime-won wealth our godless pride 
 
 Sanctioned by law, and sanctified, 
 
 Volcanic war's infernal blast 
 
 Over the land, in cinders cast, 
 
 When God's avenging angel tasked 
 
 His wrath for Freedom's holocaust, 
 
 And reaped the harvests grown from seed 
 
 Of Legislation, which from Need 
 
 Stole all his " Means of life ; " nay, stole, 
 
 And thought it profit, even his soul ! 
 
 Now every dollar, Slavery's gain, 
 Has vanished from our broad domain. 
 
And exacts retribution. 43 
 
 The apples Sodom's orchards bore 
 Were juiceless ashes at the core ; 
 The mouths that bit the ruddy fruit, 
 Disgusted spat its bitter soot. 
 Our credit side no item lacked, 
 God kept the Ledger He's exact. 
 
 Wo ! to a nation, when her prey 
 Exceeds her utmost power to pay. 
 That for false gods Toil's plunder heaps 
 In vaults secured, while Justice sleeps, 
 When in his court she, Bankrupt, stands, 
 For mercy spreading blood-stained hands. 
 " An eye for eye ! a tooth for tooth ! " 
 A sob for sob, a death for death, 
 Ever the measure that she gave, 
 That measure heaped she must receive. 
 Sweet Pity sadly smiles as Wrong, 
 Unshriven, locks her pleading tongue, 
 While God's destroying angels shed 
 Their wrathful vials on her head, 
 'Till all her splendors, from their dust, 
 Proclaim to Man that He is just. 
 
 In his stained, dreary records read 
 How Time avenges wrongs to Need. 
 See the long roll of Empires built 
 On plundered Labor, how their guilt 
 Despoiled and cursed the teeming soil, 
 'Till deserts spread where man was vile. 
 
44 What History teaches : Ashur, Egypt, 
 
 What now Assyria's fat plains, 
 
 Where driven slaves reared Belus' fanes ? 
 
 The owl hoots and the bittern moans, 
 
 Where chanting priests drowned Labor's groans. 
 
 The savage nomad's filthy tents 
 
 Stink on her crumbled monuments. 
 
 Huge tumuli reveal the ground 
 
 Whence Bab'lon over Asia frowned, 
 
 Whose massive walls derision sneered 
 
 At God and man alike unfeared. 
 
 Historic bricks, on which she 'graved 
 
 The nations that her arms enslaved, 
 
 Are sold by tale, and scholars grope 
 
 Deciphering the intent and scope 
 
 Of a dead tongue, whose alphabet 
 
 Alone survives Time's tireless fret. 
 
 Where the full granaries, Egypt's boast, 
 
 Whose yoked, unfed, unnumbered host, 
 
 Reared pyramids where despots rot, 
 
 Their glories, even their names, forgot. 
 
 The mummy, waiting banished soul, 
 
 For fuel serves in lieu of coal. 
 
 The naked fellah bakes his bread 
 
 With fierce Sesostris' shaven head ; 
 
 O'er lands that oozed with wine and oil 
 
 Crawls thro' the reeds the crocodile ; 
 
 Millions of bones stare from the sands 
 
 Where desolated Memphis stands, 
 
 And never human footstep falls 
 
 Thro' her stone forests, where their thralls 
 
 Who owned them burden bearing lashed 
 
Persia, Greece. 45 
 
 Their bitter teeth in anguish gnashed. 
 The teeming Nile spreads his broad flood, 
 Where hundred-gated Thebais stood, 
 And saw a myriad educate 
 For human slaughter, throng each gate. 
 
 What now Persepolis, Persia's vaunt ? 
 Lean, yelping jackals nightly haunt 
 The palaces, where Satraps stored 
 The glittering plunder of the sword. 
 Her serf-cut sculptures tell the* tale 
 Of Xerxes' grandeur, and bewail 
 His fate to wandering Wahabees, 
 Whose vacant eyes their colors please. 
 The solitary herdsman calls 
 His flock 'neath her dismantled walls. 
 Each in his fellow sees a foe, 
 And none can reap, where none dare sow. 
 
 What now grand Greece, whence Freedom's 
 
 swords 
 
 Drove Xerxes' enervated hordes ; 
 The world learned at Thermopylae 
 How freemen dare for liberty. 
 But what she claimed she never gave, 
 And Athens saw the shrinking slave 
 Strain 'neath the lash, to rear each stone 
 Built in her peerless Parthenon. 
 Sparta was dyed in Helots' blood, 
 Serfs of the state they furnished food. 
 To deck Diana's shrine with gold 
 The ship-wrecked mariner was sold ; 
 
46 Crreece her punishment. 
 
 By fettered men the oars were plied 
 That drove her galleys thro' the tide, 
 With Persian corses clogged, when peace, 
 At Salamis, was won for Greece. 
 The lips, on which persuasion sat, 
 Spoke but of war, and breathed of hate, 
 In language that no differ knew 
 Between a foreigner and foe. 
 
 The beauties now of Phidian frieze 
 Round eyes of staring cockneys please. 
 The proud Acropolis is bare ; 
 Greece knows not what its glories were. 
 Her sunny fields brigands infest, 
 Her sterile coasts her crimes attest ; 
 Sharp knavery, her merchants' code, 
 'Till Greek is synonym of Fraud. 
 Her virgins, sold to Turkish lust, 
 Valued by skin, hair, eyes, and bust, 
 Grow fat in shame, for God is just. 
 Her pirates, driven from her seas, 
 Collect her revenues, and squeeze 
 Her peasants with a tax tenfold, 
 By labor swelled, its worth in gold. 
 The scanty harvest of the poor, 
 Dragged to the district threshing floor 
 Across a roadless land, must wait 
 The pleasure of the careless State. 
 T' inspect his weary flail, and toll, 
 The grains that bind his doltish soul 
 To the dwarfed body, which must lie 
 Beside its heap with sleepless eye, 
 
Rome past and present. 47 
 
 Lest its weak link, to future pain, 
 All swell tax-farming pirate's gain. 
 Her statesmen, with a mallet yell, 
 Praise of the worthless throne they sell 
 To bidding kinglings, who aspire 
 Its squalid glory to acquire. 
 Avenging, and remorseless Time, 
 Her splendors has resolved to slime. 
 
 Fierce Rome, Earth's plunderer, who fed 
 Her savage mob with blood and bread. 
 (" Panem ac circenses!" her gift 
 To corraled Wolves of Labor's thrift, 
 Whose joy shrieked as the uplifted thumb, 
 Spent gladiators sent their doom.) 
 Whose epicures in slave-fed-fish 
 For jaded taste found grateful dish, 
 E'en for the Augustan table fit, 
 Where Horace smiled at Virgil's wit. 
 Whose usurer and conqueror 
 Alike proscribed as triumvir, 
 And joined hands red with Cicero's gore. 
 From whose yoke Earth gave no retreat 
 To him who fled from Caesar's hate. 
 Who warred for Triumph or caprice, 
 Who deserts spread, and called it peace. 
 The seven-hilled city's wondrous strength 
 Met Justice' shriveling sword at length, 
 Became Earth's prey, a dismal den, 
 Her gardens drowned in marsh and fen, 
 Whence drowsy shepherds homeward creep, 
 Nor dare in lethal fogs to sleep. 
 
48 Rome past and present. 
 
 And her dried skin in anguish yet 
 Doles drop by drop her dreadful debt. 
 
 The temples, whence each Caesar's ghost 
 
 Was to the constellations tossed, 
 
 The stones of Nero's " House of Gold," 
 
 The arches which her vict'ries told, 
 
 By Labor, shiv'ring, scourged, and starved, 
 
 With chisels, dropping blood, were carved. 
 
 Time waits and smiles as they become 
 
 The quarries of priest-governed Rome, 
 
 And piled in Peter's spreading dome, 
 
 Their soul-benumbing shadow falls 
 
 On baser race, Religion's thralls ; 
 
 As each assassin with his beads 
 
 Wins pardon his stiletto needs ; 
 
 And Murder buys indulgence where 
 
 Aqua Tofana makes an heir, 
 
 To estates in which a pope can share. 
 
 Where millions laughed when Caesar smiled, 
 And hailed him God, who man defiled, 
 Shaved monks like apparitions glide, 
 And beggars point their sores with pride 
 To wanderers from far Thule, 
 Who flout and jeer the scabbed display. 
 Ave Maria! swarming knaves 
 Whine drearily in dismal staves 
 To dim-eyed Superstition's slaves ; 
 Eunuchs are made, and trained, and priced, 
 To sing the praise of risen Christ. 
 The sweet-voiced tenor chants his note 
 
Rome papal rule. 49 
 
 Of worship from a beardless throat, 
 To please a brood for discord bred, 
 With hearts of flame, and heads of lead. 
 
 A pantaloon, infallible, 
 
 Squeaks answer to Italia's yell 
 
 For banishment of monkish rule, 
 
 For Railroad, Telegraph, and School, 
 
 For Code, for Press ; for Gas, a grant. 
 
 " Possumus non!" " We can't ! we can't ! " 
 
 And in dog-Latin, fulminates, 
 
 Damnation at the base ingrates 
 
 To whom the Commune yields a hope 
 
 That Man may live without a pope. 
 
 'Till hate of the gross incubus, 
 
 Was voiced in cheers unanimous, 
 
 As brutal Savoy from the throne 
 
 Of Peter pushed the doting drone. 
 
 Who, pauper of the world, for alms 
 
 Stretches afar his withered palms ; 
 
 Of every Biddy begs, and frowns 
 
 If Peter's pence are spent for gowns. 
 
 While seventy princes, clothed in red, 
 
 Who 're by his pious begging fed, 
 
 Find a new Apis when the old 
 
 A state-show, stinks, in cloth of gold ; 
 
 And as a Saint, in fcetor fills 
 
 Their treasury with miracles. 
 
 Rome wastes mankind, as tho' a sun 
 Of solid ice around them spun 
 In daily circuit, show'ring dearth 
 On the inhabitable earth. 
 
50 Her priests avenge her crimes. 
 
 Life, glooming by the frozen hearts 
 Who sell salvation in her marts. 
 Weaned on her wolf-milk, every priest 
 For human blood has wolfish taste. 
 To-day 'twould dribble down their throats, 
 Had Man not scared the foul cayotes, 
 Till now, tails down, they stand and bark ; 
 And Czar's and Kaiser's hellish work, 
 They sanctify by long-drawn wails, 
 Which float upon the shuddering gales 
 Of breezy thought, to fright the age, 
 Back to their dismal tutelage. 
 
 O ! Toilers, know, 'neath every cowl, 
 Th' assassin of Man-loving soul, 
 Such power have still the manes of slaves, 
 In Hades, that these greasy knaves, 
 Yet 'venge them on the realms of Rome, 
 God's grant to Toil, now Labor's tomb. 
 
 Foul Spain who o'er a virgin world, 
 
 Her grim cross-bearing rapers hurled, 
 
 While Europe, cowering, dismayed, 
 
 In her the power of gold obeyed, 
 
 Must long in misery atone, 
 
 The crimes of sullen Philip's throne. 
 
 No brush could paint, no tongue could tell, 
 
 The horrors of that earthly Hell ; 
 
 When Greed and Creed like leashed hounds 
 
 howled, 
 
 The dirge of thought o'er lands befouled, 
 By wafer-God, from jeweled pyx, 
 
The sins of Spain. 51 
 
 Wielding his blood-stained crucifix ; 
 
 For such God glad Loyola toiled, 
 
 As smoke of burning flesh denied 
 
 The realm whose highest politics, 
 
 Roasted or racked her heretics. 
 
 For whom death penitence was sport, 
 
 Since God his victims could assort, 
 
 Could salve with bliss the Faith- wronged stake, 
 
 And cure with heaven the court's mistake, 
 
 Suspicion merits death, let Christ 
 
 Select his own, if sacrificed. 
 
 Unhealed to-day, the hideous scars, 
 Of unrelenting Alva's wars, 
 Upon whose creed-directed path, 
 His fellows lay, as grass in swath ; 
 When wide Germania, moaning, felt 
 Hell's " Real Presence " as he knelt, 
 With swart apostles dyed in red, 
 Before a bit of mouldy bread; 
 While jungled villages, life-stilled, 
 With tamer, gleaning wolves were filled, 
 
 When Carib ghosts their woes rehearse, 
 
 Hades' swoln throat still vomits curse ; 
 
 What fiend hangs not his head in shame, 
 
 At Cortez' or Pizarro's name, 
 
 And flies not when the cross he sees, 
 
 To which they bent their blood-plashed knees ; 
 
 The venomed hate, that filled the hearts 
 
 Of countless serfs, its fangs imparts, 
 
52 The nobility of Spain. 
 
 To every grain her brigand sword 
 As tribute in her coffers poured. 
 Each doubloon its own plague conveyed, 
 While loyal conscience labor flayed. 
 
 Nature, the Spaniard gave, in vain, 
 
 For all that's low, and mean, disdain 
 
 A magnanimity unfelt 
 
 By German, Saxon, Frank or Celt. 
 
 Courage that from Saguntum's siege 
 
 To Saragossa, kept its edge. 
 
 The patience which thro' centuries 
 
 Of- bitter conflict won release, 
 
 Of blood-soaked soil from savage Moor, 
 
 And inch by inch destroyed his power. 
 
 Gave forethought, skill, and abstinence, 
 
 Gave fancy, wit, and eloquence, 
 
 Poured streams of gold from worlds unknown, 
 
 That knew no ebb, around his throne. 
 
 Gave vine-clad mountain, sunny plain, 
 
 And valleys crowned with waving grain. 
 
 Faster than toil could make repair, 
 Power's brutal hand destroyed by war ; 
 Deemed profit won by partizan, 
 Cheaper than the slow artizan. 
 O'er every gift, Creed trailed her slime, 
 Till soil was sand, and thought a crime. 
 From strength to weakness, then decay, 
 And Spain bemoans her vanished sway. 
 As Holland's marshes jeer her frown, 
 And spit upon her tonsured crown ; 
 
Her debasement ly Law. 53 
 
 The world that trembled at her name, 
 Now scoffs derision at her shame. 
 
 Now her Hidalgos shirtless, strut, 
 In threadbare cloak with hungry gut, 
 And skilled to improvise a sob, 
 Whine beggars, when afraid to rob. 
 Behold her lovers, 'neath the stars, 
 Thrumming their battered, old guitars, 
 Who, ere their senoritas catch 
 The ribald tune, must stop to scratch. 
 
 There see each burly, ragged priest, 
 His ears on fornication feast, 
 As weekly, his confessor's chair, 
 Penance commands of parrot prayer, 
 To every smiling devotee, 
 Who pardon craves on bended knee, 
 Thus balancing the last week's sins, 
 As Sunday, new account begins. 
 
 There Lust and Murder, hand in hand, 
 For marriage at the altar stand ; 
 And Sacrilege and Simony, 
 Incest with blessings sanctify. 
 For royal purple no stain shows, 
 Of dagger gouts or cicisbos ; 
 There justice finds decree by dice, 
 Unless her purse contains its price ; 
 There thieves are bred in every cot ; 
 The cross that marks the unholy spot, 
 
54 Spanish brutality. 
 
 Withered by homicidal blight, 
 
 Meets everywhere, to shock, the sight. 
 
 The Church in lousy pomp allied, 
 With Ignorance, Laziness, and Pride, 
 Dreams in its dotage to regain 
 Dominion over thinking brain ; 
 And dates her senile pastoral, 
 From friar-thronged Escurial, 
 (The only place where priests make show, 
 Of angel feathers, here below ; 
 Of Holy Coats, they've thirty-seven, 
 Each, by the sorry soldier given, 
 Who won it, when he doublets diced, 
 Below the cross of bleeding Christ. 
 Three different skulls of Peter share, 
 Devotion's gift, and bigot's prayer, 
 But only on th' Escurial's roost, 
 A moulting angel, feathers lost.) 
 To her queer sheep who, brutal, coarse, 
 With frenzied happiness are hoarse, 
 From yelling their insane delight, 
 Where bulls and men, unequal, fight. 
 
 
 
 A bloodhound-muzzled ovine flock, 
 Brain-poisoned with the milk they suck, 
 Stilled in the breasts of priest-rid dams, 
 To nourish yelping, lapping lambs, 
 Bull-necked with narrow, shallow eyes 
 The Spaniard's every feature lies ; 
 If now a Heaven-enjoying Cain 
 Is not the patron saint of Spain ; 
 
Great Britain.. 55 
 
 Tho' travelers of the splendors prate 
 And faded glories of the state 
 Ev'n while they of th' Alhambra tell, 
 It dwells in memory as a smell. 
 
 Of all the nations, she the last 
 
 Still ruled by creed, controlled by caste, 
 
 Drives Man to market, hopeful reads, 
 
 While Blackburn for the " Lost Cause" pleads, 
 
 As Don Quixote, in a gown, 
 
 Dictates her law, and trades her crown, 
 
 While Sancho Panza's garlicked throat 
 
 Hoarse bawls its lesson, conned by rote : 
 
 " To Amadeus, blight and doom ! 
 
 Hail to Alphonzo ! Welcome home ! " 
 
 Behold, to-day, for Britain's sin, 
 Ker"Mene, Tekel, Upharzin;" 
 Her vaults far richer harvests yield 
 Than Toil can win from well-tilled field ; 
 Each ship that leaves her chalk-cliffed coast 
 Bears freight of Labor's famished host ; 
 As though her body from each pore 
 Spurted her blood to every shore, 
 Out-driven by the dreadful weight 
 Imposed on Labor by the State. 
 
 There, those who shared each other's lot, 
 And hand in hand with hunger fought, 
 Long, dragging years, till weak, and frail, 
 They're herded in the paupers' jail 
 
56 English " Poor Laws ." 
 
 Whom God in love together joined, 
 The workhouse laws asunder rend ; 
 And moaning age, unaided, crawls 
 Thro' the infirmary's whitewashed walls, 
 To lay his thin, dishonored locks 
 At rest in " lowest contract " box, 
 While " discipline " the prayer denies 
 Of sobbing child, to close his eyes ; 
 So, till they rot, in dumb despair 
 The old worn balls all-tearless, stare 
 By myriads through their sprinkled mould, 
 In horror, at the God of Gold. 
 
 Thus British law improves the plan 
 To which want drives the Bojesman, 
 Who, burdened by his helpless sire, 
 Leaves him in solitude expire, 
 Where water-pot and mumbled crust 
 May guard and mark his bleaching dust. 
 
 There single rooms with tenants swarm, 
 
 Whom factories stunt and mines deform, 
 
 Herded like beasts, as void of shame, 
 
 Menageries, by hunger tame, 
 
 There babes are dropped in straw that reeks 
 
 With incest, as he nightly licks 
 
 The turgid lips of poisoned gin, 
 
 Conscious of lust, but not of kin, 
 
 To fight for life with hopeless tug 
 
 At fever's cracked and burning dug. 
 
 There, while a million ladies pine, 
 Unwilling celibates, the wine 
 
England's hopeless poverty. 57 
 
 Of love, refused their drouth-parched lips, 
 For each an humbler sister slips, 
 And, bastard nursing, spends her life, 
 Mistress for him who spurns a wife, 
 Who, bred to luxuries, would efface 
 Love with a parasite's embrace ; 
 For there machinery has destroyed 
 The helpmate's business ; unemployed, 
 The social drone can never wed, 
 Save when her dowry buys the bed. 
 
 There life-long toil, by skillful hand, 
 
 Can not attain a rood of land ; 
 
 For workmen's needs their wage exceed, 
 
 And famine daily wars with greed ; 
 
 While statesmen strive to lull their cries 
 
 For justice by that LIE OF LIES, 
 
 " The Interests of Capital, 
 
 And Labor, are identical," 
 
 And hush them with the horrid food 
 
 Of wretched India's transfused blood, 
 
 Whose rice-fed millions die in shoals, 
 
 Like fish whose stream a factory fouls ; 
 
 And taxed to limit, problem solve 
 
 How little man can eat and live, 
 
 By earning just enough to starve 
 
 On what is left, when usurers carve. 
 
 That England better may endure 
 
 The curse of primogeniture, 
 
 Her trampling hosts o'er Asia tread, 
 
 And younger sons her empire spread. 
 
58 Her system of domestic war. 
 
 There laws are framed, 'neath which the poor 
 All pauperism's weight endure ; 
 For Capital evades the u rate," 
 Demolishing the plowman's hut ; 
 So trudging Toil's long day is broke 
 To get his neck in Labor's yoke. 
 
 There hoar oaks thrive on fertile sod, 
 Withheld from Man by legal fraud, 
 Whose titles spring from Norman yell 
 Of victory ! when Harold fell. 
 There broad desmesnes support the state, 
 That frowns on Famine at its gate ; 
 And Man's lords dwell in pride so high 
 They can not hear their fellows cry. 
 
 Thro' every street, beneath the lamps, 
 Thro' every lane, War, stealthy, tramps ; 
 When each man fortifies his house, 
 War only waits for his carouse. 
 
 What tho' her Banker dictates where 
 War's widow-stunning trump shall blare, 
 And what tho' bayonet dare not shine. 
 Beyond his office map's faint line, 
 Who in Threadneedle pulls the strings 
 That move, and twirl earth's puppet kings ; 
 And shakes his web in Mammon's den 
 To catch a fly in far Japan. 
 Though in her lap all nations pour 
 Their wealth from every clime and shore ; 
 
Her decadence. 59 
 
 Tho' on all waves her flag's unfurled, 
 Gathering her tribute from the world ; 
 Tho' half mankind her brood obey, 
 Subservient to her grinding sway ; 
 
 Yet feels she thro' her bloated frame 
 Nemesis' cancer's subtle flame, 
 Dire poisons thro' her vitals pour 
 And sap the sources of her power ; 
 While wider, richer, grows her mart, 
 Weaker, and feebler, throbs her heart. 
 The strong-armed race that bent the yew, 
 That Agincourt and Cressy knew, 
 Degenerate into wages slaves, 
 Reel, gin-fed, to their pauper graves. 
 Sepoys, and Sikhs her conquests spread, 
 St. George but prances at their head. 
 
 Not all her gold to-day could raise 
 
 A regiment of Highland Greys, 
 
 Like that which, thro' the long June day, 
 
 At Waterloo all patient la}', 
 
 Firm, as if on a dress parade, 
 
 While thro' its ranks Death wanton played, 
 
 As hurtling hurricanes of lead 
 
 Aligned the living on the dead. 
 
 Till, at the muttered order " Close," 
 
 The breathing wall in silence rose, 
 
 Its clanned and tartaned square reformed ; 
 
 Tho' at each gap a squadron stormed, 
 
 Like foam against a cliff, it met 
 
 The dripping Highland bayonet, 
 
60 Her land system. 
 
 And, wildly plunging, rolled in dust, 
 
 At its mail-piercing, sinewy thrust. 
 
 Nor moved, each heart with rage aflame, 
 
 'Till the shrill pibroch's signal came, 
 
 And Gaelic ears caught Gael's tune, 
 
 " Charge ! Claymores, Charge ! " the battle's 
 
 won. 
 
 Then War first saw the Old Guard reel 
 Its leaders spitted on their steel 
 Then War first saw the Old Guard fly, 
 When to resist was but to die. 
 " Sauve que peut!" its hopeless shout, 
 Retreat borne headlong into rout. 
 
 The lands that nourished heroes then 
 
 Are now too dear for breeding men ; 
 
 And lonely shepherds herd their flocks 
 
 On Caledonia's heathery rocks. 
 
 The cabins of her bravest race 
 
 No more her shelt'ring glens deface 
 
 Eviction levelled them in dust 
 
 And Mammon cried, " It pays, 'tis just ! " 
 
 By Norman law the Suzerain 
 Is granted fee of clan's domain ; 
 Altho' since Scotland knew her name, 
 The tribes of Alpin, Loughlin, Graeme, 
 Each, as a family, tilled its land 
 A little nation each, a band, 
 Welded by common sympathies, 
 And knit by sacred memories. 
 By all traditions a Commune, 
 
Man driven from Scotland by sheep. 61 
 
 Which stored for all what each had grown, 
 
 And never knew a hungry man 
 
 Shame the full gran'ries of a clan. 
 
 They had no parchments they were there 
 
 Before a will confessed an heir ; 
 
 There long before a peer was known, 
 
 A feudal law, or royal throne ; 
 
 A strong, earth-conquering, stalwart race, 
 
 Before a pen was taught to trace 
 
 A deed the devil's formula, 
 
 For wealth's increase, and Man's decay. 
 
 And who could better title have 
 
 Than his great grandsire's grandsire's grave ? 
 
 Now Sutherland's gaunt beldame sits, 
 
 Countess and dutch ess, wrapped in writs, 
 
 Between whose lines their fate is read ; 
 
 Who, driven from hearth, and home, have fled 
 
 By thousands from a kingdom, where 
 
 Man dies and leaves a sheep to heir 
 
 The lands, by his forefathers plowed, 
 
 By judges stolen, for the proud, 
 
 Degenerate race of peers that springs 
 
 From loins of patriarchal kings. 
 
 Now bobbin-winding serfs parade 
 As guards of gold that's won by trade ; 
 And little, bow-legged weavers drill 
 For what they eat, and what they swill. 
 While veterans from Rotten-row, 
 Whose cherubimic whiskers flow 
 Beyond their shoulders, hours amuse, 
 
62 Her heroes extinct. 
 
 That can be spared from park reviews, 
 
 Teaching Falstaffian recruits 
 
 Which end to hold, and which end shoots. 
 
 And she, whose dauntless hearts of oak 
 Freed Europe from Napoleon's yoke ; 
 Whose volleying thunders answer roared 
 Each threat'ning gleam of despot's sword, 
 Queen regnant of the emerald main 
 Which spread a rolling purpled plain, 
 As o'er its waves her vengeful fleets 
 Strewed victories, nor knew defeats, 
 Now only in a bomb-proof sails 
 Manned from her overflowing jails ; 
 And now, nor rank, nor Westminster, 
 Its captain's placid pulses stir. 
 
 In her, the palace, built on loom 
 
 Affords a middle class no room ; 
 
 A nation's trunk, whose fibrous life 
 
 With energy and skill is rife, 
 
 While paupers and aristocrats, 
 
 Upon it thrive as parasites ; 
 
 Whose verdure drains its vital force, 
 
 Until their tendrils clasp its corse, 
 
 That class extinct, the womb is dried, 
 
 Whence heroes sprang, her wars to guide ; 
 
 And she, who Olive and Nelson bred, 
 
 Now casts a larger gun, instead, 
 
 And past child-bearing, trusts to plate, 
 
 The fortunes of the senile State. 
 
All nations her enemies. 63 
 
 All nations tugging at the draught, 
 
 Of Mammon's ponderous Juggernaut, 
 
 His victim his best devotee, 
 
 His Aceldama, Jubilee, 
 
 Slowly, but surely rolls his wheel ; 
 
 Over Earth's proudest commonweal. 
 
 So now, the Queen of Ocean lies, 
 
 A mass of blubber, luscious prize, 
 
 For shark and sword-fish, who but wait, 
 
 Till patient Time has spelled her date ; 
 
 Now, from the dense chaotic glooms, 
 
 Wrapping in murky night, the tombs 
 
 Of Empires who betrayed their Trust, 
 
 She hears the call, " Come, Rot with us ! " 
 
 If gold were strength, and Man refuse ; 
 Were heroes generate in stews ; 
 Could eunuch voices ring war's cheer ; 
 Dared dancers welcome Honor's bier ; 
 Belshazzar might have shored his wall, 
 Nor feared God's handwrite in his hall. 
 
 Here, where Earth's exiles refuge sought, 
 From serfdom's chill and cheerless lot. 
 Where States, plebeian founded, won 
 Legal Equality for man, 
 And where with mother's milk we drank, 
 Hatred of Kings, and dread of rank. 
 The choicest lands of Labor's zone, 
 Where Nature's lavish hands have strewn. 
 In myriad forms, the countless store 
 That won from soil, and wrought from ore. 
 
64 America degenerate. 
 
 Where, what the people will, they can, 
 By keeping step to Freedom's van. 
 
 Here, we, degenerate and enslaved, 
 Betray the race, whose valor saved 
 God's charter from the despot's rage, 
 And traced in blood on History's page, 
 Man's absolute Nature-founded Right 
 To Life, to Liberty, to light 
 CJpon his path, in slow pursuit 
 Of Happiness, the normal fruit 
 Of equal law, in justice framed, 
 By which, alone, Ambition's tamed ; 
 We desecrate our Fathers' graves, 
 And heirs of men, are sires of slaves, 
 For now by law we generate 
 The pauper and aristocrat. 
 
 Here Law herself grows lawless, breeds 
 
 Corruption, sows the pest'lent seeds 
 
 Of crime, broadcast. Incurable 
 
 Such State must be ; for what can heal 
 
 The fell disease the healer spreads, 
 
 Who with th' apothecary beds ? 
 
 Law-makers are law-breakers ; sneers 
 
 The legislator meets who fears 
 
 His conscience. Rings consort with Rings; 
 
 In sunshine brawling Bribery flings 
 
 Aside concealment, only Shame 
 
 Meets purse too weak " to work its claim." 
 
 In curule chair, now Luxury lolls, 
 
 With checks " electioneering " polls. 
 
Party spirit her bane. 65 
 
 Exposure has no dread ; forgot 
 To-day's theft in to-morrow's plot. 
 The Servants of the people bow 
 Before King Caucus ; every brow 
 Is stamped with party ; every vote 
 Must party interest promote. 
 Aye Cataline's fierce retinue 
 Again with blood of serfs imbrue 
 The hands of traitors, as they meet 
 In secret conclave to concrete 
 Into one will one hundred minds, 
 By oath, that each to party binds. 
 
 Yazoo democracy asserts 
 
 Its kin to "Caucus." Who deserts 
 
 Or one, or other may invite 
 
 His funeral. From Yazoo, flight 
 
 Prolongs his day ; but Caucus-doomed, 
 
 From politics his life's inhumed ; 
 
 And unanimity is taught 
 
 By Sumner shelved, or Dixon shot. 
 
 Here Mammon grasps Man's broad domain, 
 Which happy millions might sustain, 
 And while a venal Congress gloats 
 Over the bonds it earns by votes, 
 Despite his wordy, helpless rage, 
 Fraud peddles Labor's heritage, 
 Entrenched behind the purchased law, 
 In which our Courts can find no flaw. 
 
 How think you Crilly feels to hear 
 His old age sentenced to despair ; 
 
66 Her Land-law at war with Nature. 
 
 Who hand to hand, with Nature fought. 
 Who, five and twenty long years wrought, 
 And on a tract that no man claimed, 
 The prairie broke, and forest tamed, 
 Till yellow, rustling harvests spread 
 Behind his soil-subduing tread, 
 And rick, and corn-crib, barn, and stack 
 Sprang brimmed with food upon his track ; 
 Whose household gods, from happy hearth, 
 Filled all his living room with mirth 
 At thought of poverty or dearth, 
 To know that by a Railroad grant 
 He's thrown from affluence to want ? 
 
 What Law, but Mammon's dare expel, 
 By precedent of Jezebel, 
 Him, who God's title pled in Court, 
 To hear it made a judge's sport. 
 His title 's Man's, of older date 
 Than any law, or any State, 
 Who occupies shall have the use 
 All other title's sheer abuse, 
 For as Man lives by air and earth, 
 Monopoly results in dearth. 
 For as Man lives by earth and air, 
 His needs and use should shape his share. 
 If yet on Earth reigns Naboth's God, 
 The dogs will lick that Judge's blood. 
 
 Here, where man's wrath, and woman's tears, 
 Thro' slow-drawn, agonizing years, 
 Formed the strong solvent which dissolved 
 
Escape from Moloch's den to Mammon's cave. 67 
 
 The law-made fetters that involved 
 
 Swart Labor's limbs, and brutified 
 
 The image of the living God ; 
 
 To rend fierce Moloch's fiery tower, 
 
 And pluck Toil's children from his power, 
 
 Insensate, Mammon's help we prayed, 
 
 Who lent, for Usury, his aid. 
 
 But poor advance can Freedom boast, 
 
 If Mammon gained what Moloch lost, 
 
 The fiend still juggles with her hopes, 
 
 Thro' legal jungles, blind she gropes, 
 
 And dimly sees, in dumb amaze, 
 
 The many sink, the few to raise. 
 
 Now, shoddy-bred patricians wield 
 
 For gain, the force that all should shield. 
 
 Flaunting in spoils of legal crime, 
 
 As Money, put to bed with Time. 
 
 Breeds its curst " profit ; " feeds the sons 
 
 Of sweat-despising, civ'lized Huns, 
 
 A horde of broadclothed brutes, obscene, 
 
 Trampling the fields that Toil should glean 
 
 Whilst he, a filthy Tramp becomes, 
 
 And Labor rots in stinking slums 
 
 If Freemen lose what Slaves have gained, 
 
 'Tis wasted blood our flag has stained. 
 
 As a meek ass, with wool for load, 
 When driven thro' the rising flood, 
 Feels on his back the increasing weight, 
 And wonders that it grows so great, 
 
68 Her labor rolled ly her creditors 
 
 So patient, doited Labor feels 
 The growing burden in his creels, 
 
 Nor understands that cunning scheme 
 Which, like a lying prophet's dream, 
 At first sight, to appearance true, 
 But false as Hell, on after view, 
 Which, by a mortgage, wealth creates, 
 And by their debts enriches States, 
 By which the loans, in paper made, 
 For War's demands, in gold are paid. 
 As values fall, and dollars rise, 
 Each bond is swelled to three-fold size. 
 Since swindling Mammon doled her coins, 
 To aid the Nation gird her loins. 
 
 Now, when the tripled usury drains 
 Life from the Nation's shriveled veins, 
 And enterprise and industry 
 Are clothed in shame and poverty, 
 The leeches, who, by suction great, 
 Thrive but t' impoverish the State ; 
 Who pay no tax, who raise no grain, 
 Who drive no loom, who push no plane, 
 Whose sordid brows were never wet 
 By honest toil, with honest sweat, 
 Descent from Adam who deny, 
 And know no law, but that they buy ; 
 A breed, one single lesson learns, 
 To pare the nickels Labor earns, 
 In fear that he may drop his load, 
 Prate of his Honor ! shriek of Fraud ! 
 
And by her politicians. 69 
 
 And with hand-engines squirt what stink 
 Can be condensed in printers' ink 
 At those who dare his right maintain, 
 The water from the wool to drain. 
 
 See Labor, like an old crow-bait, 
 List'ning his masters sage debate, 
 What space upon his loin is left 
 Which may, by tax, be further chafed. 
 Behold their patriotism pack 
 New pensions on the sorry hack, 
 Who patient plodding, only gnaws 
 His empty nose-bag, and he-haws 
 To see the startling eagerness, 
 With which the country's goddesses 
 Leap from the Treasury, for the heirs 
 Of U. S. Mexic muleteers 
 Though by their progeny forgot, 
 Remembered by the grateful State ; 
 Whose gratitude so ardent glows 
 Jogged by claim agents, that she owes 
 More widows, than the soldiers slain 
 Could have espoused, ere that campaign ; 
 Though each whose "glory" found a tomb, 
 Came from much married Mormondom, 
 And by such snivelling scores were wail'd, 
 As those to strong-spined Brigham sealed 
 Stretching his dreary mouth to bray 
 Approval of the wordy fray, 
 As Conkling's sneer, and Jim Elaine's wit, 
 Would from the tax-filled treasury's tit 
 
70 America last refuge of freedom. 
 
 One unrepentant traitor drive, 
 While thousands worse upon it thrive. 
 
 Here Labor finds his last retreat, 
 
 No refuge left if here defeat 
 
 Despairing Europe shivers still 
 
 As faintly Freedom's pulses thrill 
 
 Her manacled and nerveless limbs, 
 
 While idiot Toil all-gleeful hymns 
 
 Te Deums to a hating God, 
 
 Drunk with the stench of steaming blood. 
 
 Crushed shapeless, by the weight of crowns, 
 
 Her struggles but increase her wounds. 
 
 There peace goes armed, and war's content 
 
 To see his empire permanent, 
 
 Content with annual holocaust 
 
 Of Conscript Labor to exhaust 
 
 The Stock of Manhood, dwarfed, deformed, 
 
 By taxes fed and uniformed ; 
 
 For glory drilled, emasculate 
 
 To love, for slaughter consecrate ; 
 
 While women driven from the hearth, 
 
 And moiled by traffic, quarrel with earth 
 
 For life, and masculine from need, 
 
 Supply their place and cease to breed. 
 
 Here Labor stands, with back to wall. 
 Behind her Asia's hopeless thrall, 
 Whose limbs grow fitted to his chain, 
 Whose dead nerves have lost sense of pain. 
 The basest form of breathing dust, 
 
Chinese question discussed. 71 
 
 Whose food is vermin, love is lust ; 
 Whose whittled Joss his soul can save, 
 His children goods ; his wife, his slave 
 Unnatural cross 'twixt sheep and lynx, 
 Who dead is earthed, because he stinks ; 
 A leprous wretch, damned in the womb, 
 Of manhood's hopes, a living tomb. 
 Ev'n now, the animals obscene 
 Within your Golden Gates convene, 
 Thick thronging at the greedy call 
 Of plunder-founded Capital. 
 When Spanish grants were patented 
 By leagues, and thinking Labor fled 
 Before Law-made monopolies 
 Under a treaty's thin disguise. 
 Furnished by Companies in herds, 
 Profit their selling-price affords 
 The yellow-buttoned mandarin, 
 Importing animate machine, 
 Who now to Washington has sent 
 His Minister to represent, 
 To Labor's legal plunderers there 
 The "profit," that they too may share; 
 And the wrong done Celestial gold, 
 If coolies are no longer sold. 
 
 Welcome, O ! Brothers, free Chinese, 
 Your equal law must give them peace, 
 Each freeman to your ranks will press, 
 He too, " pursues his happiness." 
 But stem with all your force the waves 
 Of immigrating Mongol Slaves, 
 
72 The governors never free the governed. 
 
 Whose boundless flood to Toil denies 
 His natural right to living price. 
 Whose labor's paid, their bones returned 
 To moulder in the lands that spurned 
 Their bodies, and would yield no aid 
 While Mammon on its offspring preyed. 
 
 From that dread tide, O ! Toilers shrink 
 Even now you stand upon its brink ; 
 You must abjure, contemn, deny 
 Greed's law, " Demand begets Supply " 
 Or in the market see your price 
 Quoted as other merchandise. 
 
 From your oppressors hope no terms 
 Save such as jay-birds grant to worms, 
 The swollen leech knows thirst unquenched 
 Till from his hold by force he's wrenched. 
 Your blood can ne'er their palates pall 
 Till in their graves unfilled they fall. 
 Greed's stomach holds what his teeth tear 
 A shark won't vomit for a prayer 
 His claim is, what he don't possess, 
 His Right is, what he can oppress ; 
 He reaps, where he has never sown, 
 He gathers where he ne'er has strown ; 
 Each dollar of his ill-got wealth, 
 By "Profit" wars with "public health." 
 
 Each State, incorporate, transforms, 
 
 Like Herod's body, food to worms, 
 
 And Death crawls thro' the " Means of Life, 1 
 
Interest works longer hours than Man. 73 
 
 When Legislation sanctions strife, 
 'Twixt brain and muscle earning bread, 
 And money by their products fed. 
 
 Greed's Gold, like gnomes in haunted mines, 
 
 Unceasing works, new treasures finds, 
 
 (For every handful of his ore, 
 
 By Law yields annual profit more, 
 
 Than he will grant to pick and drill, 
 
 Though swung by strength and driven by skill) 
 
 While Toil sleeps, tossing on his straw, 
 
 The hours allotted him by law, 
 
 Too happy, if he can in dreams, 
 
 Forsake his tired and aching limbs, 
 
 His rented, vermin-breeding home, 
 
 And thro' green fields and pastures roam, 
 
 Until the angry clanging bell, 
 
 Re-calls him to his opened Hell ; 
 
 Then weary wakes, with heavy moan, 
 
 To roll his Sisyphaean stone. 
 
 O ! Labor blinded ! Toil, dull-brained, 
 Living your sordid life, mud-stained, 
 Of petty aims, and abject fears 
 Whose very laughter tells of tears. 
 As peasant, vassal, wages-slave, 
 Hopeless and cowed from womb to grave. 
 Ye groveling herds, subdued by shams, 
 Work-begging, as tho' craving alms ; 
 Whose long hours' toil for paltry wage, 
 Mammon rewards with pauper age ; 
 Deformed in limb and marred in face, 
 6 
 
74 The fathers have eaten sour grapes, 
 
 Whose pleasure's vice, whose thought is base, 
 Who by the force of Mammon's law, 
 Must yield your grain and reap its straw. 
 For appetite, you ne'er can sate 
 Robbed of the wealth your hands create. 
 From your long centuries'-sleep, Awake ! 
 The manacles that bind you, Break ! 
 And laws that make your wrongs, their Right 
 Like phantoms fade before your might. 
 
 The uncouth, formless weights that press, 
 With dead'ning force upon the mass, 
 Hap-hazard framed as Greed complained, 
 Of Labor's conquest, still ungained, 
 Which for the interests of the few, 
 By partial legislation grew, 
 Till all the wealth by Toil amassed, 
 But broader builds the throne of Caste, 
 Until Greed claims a vested right, 
 To hold Man's land, in his despite, 
 Product of tyranny and chance, 
 Are chiefest hindrance to advance. 
 
 Have so debased the Lord of Earth, 
 So crushed in him what is of worth, 
 (The independent force-full mind, 
 Warmed by the heart that loves its kind,) 
 That e'en the Nomad's surly glance 
 Is nobler than his countenance, 
 Who gladly flees from Labor's huts, . 
 And in his shameless livery struts, 
 With sprawling soul, from servant's hall, 
 
And the children's teeth are set on edge. 75 
 
 To answer at his " Master's " call. 
 
 Sets on his scull's thick-coating fat 
 
 Cockaded, bullet-fitting hat, 
 
 To proper distance gives his thought, 
 
 Subsides to walk, or urges trot, 
 
 To swell the prancing pride that jogs 
 
 Before him, nearer, welcoming dogs, 
 
 Or, hangs his head on shoulders bent, 
 
 And rounded less by toil than rent, 
 
 In pitiful humility, 
 
 Before the " man of property " 
 
 Whose right, inherited, exacts 
 
 For use of "Means of life," a tax 
 
 For domicil upon an earth, 
 
 That owes its space to every birth. 
 
 The record of each nation's life 
 Is but a tale of ceaseless strife, 
 'Twixt those who earn and would retain, 
 And those who filch by law their gain. 
 
 Man in the town confederates 
 
 The lord his eyrie abdicates, 
 
 Whence he had swooped upon the road 
 
 To spoil the traveler of his load, 
 
 And where he with port-cullis shut 
 
 The plunder torn from peasant's hut, 
 
 His castle builds to fright the wall 
 
 Fear built to shield his weak-kneed thrall, 
 
 Then legal theft supplies his purse, 
 
 And cunning serves in lieu of force. 
 
76 Class legislation 
 
 The Sovereign sells the right to trade, 
 Duties and tariffs, ports blockade, 
 States rob their citizens, whose grists 
 Are thrice tolled by monopolists, 
 Tenths of the farmer's toil-won wage 
 The " Order " claims, its privilege 
 Inherent, as the groaning earth 
 For noble's use, gives peasants birth. 
 Nations are driven, without respite, 
 To toil for strangers, proselyte 
 By cross, firm-hilted on the sword, 
 To add to " Profits " waste-won hoard. 
 
 Why swollen revenues for a church 
 Should man through legislation search, 
 He finds their reason in the alms, 
 Dropped from its griping, greasy palms, 
 To men its greed has pauperized 
 By lands to " pious use " devised 
 When Cowls around a death-bed stood, 
 And scared it with Saturnian God. 
 
 See Valentinian tax the air, 
 See Henry's favorite debar 
 The lady from her husband's bed, 
 Until five hundred pullets paid 
 Cohabitation's price, assessed 
 By greed on weary Love's unrest. 
 
 But how does this to you apply ? 
 Man has outgrown such villainy ! 
 
Found in every land. 77 
 
 Nay ! See your agues taxed. To-day 
 See shivering fever mock dismay 
 Of fainting poverty, whose hearse 
 Is ordered by his scanty purse, 
 As legal thieves " protection " yell, 
 And foreign Quinia expel. 
 
 In every form the wealth laws steal, 
 
 Is wielded 'gainst the common weal. 
 
 Labor's best years are spent to gain 
 
 A shelter in his own domain ; 
 
 For law, the progeny of feuds, 
 
 Her deed upon his right intrudes, 
 
 And Mammon squats upon the land, 
 
 By God, made free for Labor's hand, 
 
 And seams and scars the gen'rous soil, 
 
 Till scowls from Earth, meet Heaven's smile, 
 
 With lines surveyed, whose us^s serve 
 
 This man to feast, and that to starve, 
 
 With hedges trimmed to fend the field 
 
 For griping Avarice' puny child, 
 
 While Nature's stalwart son must plod 
 
 With wistful eyes the dusty road. 
 
 The harvests that reward his toil, 
 
 In turn must yield to Mammon spoil, 
 
 For law has posted at his gate, 
 
 To clutch his profit with their freight ; 
 
 The railroads that he built, controlled 
 
 By Scott, or Vanderbilt, or Gould, 
 
 Who, taught in " certain profit's " school, 
 
 Drown Competition in the " pool " 
 
78 Labor robbed by her servants. 
 
 His fields, tho' brimmed with golden freight, 
 Barren to him they've fixed the "rate." 
 
 Not all his loss ! How price obtain, 
 
 When in the Market stands his grain, 
 
 And there his brother must deny 
 
 His eager entrails full supply, 
 
 Since his employer's wages yield 
 
 But close escape from Potter's field. 
 
 Can he pay more, who fears to fail, 
 
 Trading on borrowed capital, 
 
 And in the Banker's coffer flings 
 
 The " profit " he from Labor wrings ? 
 
 Who has just felt the grinning Jew 
 
 In " pound of flesh," his hands imbrue, 
 
 And must his gaping wounds assuage 
 
 By baser fabric, lowered wage, 
 
 So raging ift his office counts 
 
 How to regain it, ounce by ounce? 
 
 Bankers in land, and shares invest, 
 
 And Man's Lawgivers bribe and feast, 
 
 Profits breed profit : Cent per cent 
 
 Protection 's all of Gf-overnment. 
 
 The Judge by working half their day, 
 
 Earns what would three score laborers pay ; 
 
 No Job's chair at the city's gate, 
 
 With sense on law, dare innovate, 
 
 But pondering brows, and loud debate, 
 
 Precedents read, statutes collate, 
 
 Must throw their force upon a mind, 
 
 To simple Justice deaf and blind ; 
 
 Reason must feed on the dead pith 
 
Times change Laws do not. 79 
 
 Of Law, in " Wiggins versus Smith," 
 Before it can decree prepare 
 To fit the case it has at bar. 
 
 So Chinese tailors on their bench, 
 
 By servile imitation quench 
 
 Their common-sense, as they devote 
 
 Their solemn skill to make, a coat, 
 
 Like that by European sent, 
 
 To teach them how to shape his want, 
 
 And deftly on new garments match 
 
 A disregarded, sorry patch, 
 
 That so the copy's symmetry 
 
 May meet their patron's scrutiny. 
 
 To-day our locomotives drag 
 The same old cart the carrier's nag 
 Saw his thick-witted master stow 
 With freight five centuries ago. 
 The carrier in Court-Leet sued, 
 With Hodge on equal footing stood, 
 He proved his damage, and was paid 
 Law then, the carriers dismayed. 
 That cart to myriad cars has grown, 
 Hodge still is an unlettered clown, 
 Poor, ragged, friendless and unknown ; 
 Let him sue them Ohone ! Ohone ! 
 
 Now Labor's tenure of the land, 
 Is what it was when Nimrod planned 
 To dominate his fellows. Since 
 His dynasty has lacked no prince 
 
80 Our Trojan Horse. 
 
 To inherit the control he clutched ; 
 Still Greed is palaced, Labor hutched, 
 No change, except that more polite, 
 Our sheriffs levy on the wight, 
 And sell his " Means of life," while he 
 Red-handed, took the property. 
 
 So Laws perpetuate each curse, 
 
 And Usury vaunts her bursting purse. 
 
 Rooted upon the granite rock 
 Of innate selfishness they mock, 
 With their high battlements, the rage 
 Of wars which tongue or pen can wage. 
 But here, thank God, we have the force 
 The Greeks found in their wooden horse 
 Our engine is within their towers 
 Brothers, come out ! the city's ours ! 
 And as Troy fell, so here will fall 
 The frightful walls of Capital. 
 
 We have the Ballot, at its beck 
 The law-built fortress lies in wreck, 
 When two tramps outweigh Vanderbilt, 
 If blood should follow, his the guilt. 
 Brute Force, now Monarch, rebel when 
 The Commune drives him from his den, 
 Shall see his paper titles torn, 
 Shall see his statutes held in scorn, 
 In durance, with his close clipt claw, 
 Shall scrape in vain his muzzled jaw, 
 Shall see the jungles where he caved, 
 
The dawn of better days. 81 
 
 By freemen tilled 'neath laws engraved 
 On every human heart, and known 
 Wherever Love has Greed outgrown, 
 For Reason shall his Bastile win, 
 And Labor, servant, shall be King. 
 
 Despair not Labor ! Thro' your night 
 The dawn is breaking ! Now the light 
 Of Reason glimmers in the towers. 
 Upon Time's dial, single hours 
 For generations stand. Your guns 
 Will father free flails for your sons ; 
 The gun that thinks need only sight, 
 Its bullet 's bedded in " the white ! " 
 Your powder dry, your aim exact, 
 And lo ! Democracy 's a fact ; 
 Her equal law dissolves the strife 
 Of Labor with his " Means of Life," 
 Which Capital for "profit" plies, 
 Earned but by your sterilities. 
 
 Behold your foes, whose power sustains 
 The cankered Frauds that blight your gains 
 For whom you faint in Summer's heat, 
 For whom you freeze in Winter's sleet, 
 For whom in dismal huts you dwell 
 Whose squalor makes green earth a hell. 
 
 Between them and your wak'ning hate, 
 Your courts as buffers dissipate 
 Through cushioned judges, forceful blows, 
 Lost in the reverence that bows 
 
82 The Enemies of Labor. 
 
 To " dictum," as tho' in a vest 
 
 Of ermine, Wisdom must be dressed. 
 
 Faugh ! Folly, with his cap and bells, 
 As oft' with genuine wisdom dwells, 
 As does the pundit whose crammed skull 
 With John Doe's pedigree is full. 
 
 This is a Court ! See seven to eight 
 
 Enter upon the high debate ; 
 
 Each question raised, of law or fact, 
 
 Each reading of the nation's pact, 
 
 Betrays in all the party leaven 
 
 Each settled still by eight to seven. 
 
 A Court ! Behold the solemn eight 
 
 Affirm, the solemn seven negate 
 
 On each divide. Two parrots' throats, 
 
 Half-trained, would give as well the votes 
 
 This taught to scream 'We're seven ! " and that 
 
 To squawk its answer, " Eight ! we're eight ! " 
 
 Our highest Court ! and seven to eight 
 
 Its solemn finding deprecate ; 
 
 For seven to eight must disagree 
 
 Upon the partisan decree. 
 
 Rev'rence is waste, O ! Toil ! For such 
 
 Ermines would your grimed fingers smutch ? 
 
 But leave her higher seats ; come down 
 Where Justice wears her work-day gown. 
 Behold her halls, where lawyers snarl 
 Around her, standing by her barrel, 
 Wielding an oyster knife her sword 
 
The Courts. 83 
 
 As each bivalvous case is heard, 
 
 And while their slobb'ring mouths she fills- 
 
 'Twixt litigants divides the shells ; 
 
 Her scales a-rust, her bandage slipped, 
 
 As Influence is fellowshipped. 
 
 Think you the sal'ried Solomon, 
 
 Whose precedents award the bone 
 
 To him who wins contested cause 
 
 Its marrow sucked by legal fees 
 
 By modesty would be debarred 
 
 From sharing in the gross award ? 
 
 That when the sapient Shallow blinks, 
 
 The while his bailiff trolls the sinks 
 
 Where second-hand free-lunch is spread, 
 
 For jurors, he will go unfed ; 
 
 And when the verdict is on sale, 
 
 Of his appointee take no toll. 
 
 Could Hibbard equal share deny 
 
 In gain from annual perjury, 
 
 To Blodgett, under whose advice 
 
 He framed his tabulated lies ? 
 
 Think, he, whose honesty was vouched 
 
 By Law-Association, pouched 
 
 All profit and denied his claim, 
 
 Who furnished for a shield, his name ? 
 
 Fraught with repulsive villainies, 
 
 Your Justice Courts their source confess ; 
 
 The ermine somewhere hides a purse, 
 
 Or why should it the knave endorse, 
 
 Whose docket verifies his boast : 
 
 " The judgment must secure the cost." 
 
84 Absurdities of Human justice. 
 
 O ! God of Justice ! Could I half 
 Describe this contrast, men would laugh 
 To scorn the dotards that usurp 
 Your seat, with " precedents " to warp 
 The jurors' sense, till as by dice, 
 Plaudits or ropes he offers vice, 
 Grown Murder, and disdaining cloak, 
 So well disguised by legal smoke. 
 
 Here ! One, a romping wife has slain, 
 
 He's innocent! he was insane ! 
 
 Prove that, by letters two years old, 
 
 Rage then Insanity, foretold, 
 
 Prove its slow growth that dreary time, 
 
 Until one day his eyes grew dim 
 
 With jealous tears, and long-nursed wrath 
 
 With coward pistol hunted death. 
 
 Acquit him ; crazed perhaps he was, 
 
 Brain staggers oft for lesser cause ; 
 
 No sudden access tho', the intent 
 
 Is what the fondled weapon meant, 
 
 Through the dull months his angry grip 
 
 Oft sought in dreams his burdened hip. 
 
 And there are two raw, filthy boys, 
 Coarse in their toil, beasts in their joys, 
 Living by butchery, slaughter-dazed, 
 Their natural instincts even, were crazed. 
 Of all the brutes they stabbed, no life 
 Viler than theirs fell to their knife. 
 Neither was sane, tho' at his best, 
 And wild with rage, from lust repressed, 
 
How Law creates crime. 85 
 
 Delired by drink the city sold, 
 
 She gave the license, got the gold, 
 
 Running a muck, a man they slew, 
 
 A man that neither ever knew, 
 
 No time for an intent to form, 
 
 The weapon in the hand -scarce warm. 
 
 Prove them insane ! cries Common Sense. 
 Close guard them, all beyond th' expense 
 To feed them, that their toil can earn 
 Apply to wipe their tears who mourn. 
 Force them for life rebuild the house 
 They shattered by their wild carouse. 
 No pardon ! Let a jury say 
 When they again may welcome day. 
 Apply the price of blood you took 
 For license. Let the orphans look 
 To you, to return the money cost 
 Of all they, with the father, lost, 
 Why not ? If arson bought permit, 
 Should not the seller, house refit, 
 Who starts a flame, full damage owes 
 To him who suffers as it grows ; 
 If lit in hearts, or touched to straw 
 His debt's the same by Reason's law. 
 
 So Common Sense, what says the judge ? 
 "Admitting that they have no grudge, 
 The murd'rous weapon shows th' intent, 
 And death must be their punishment. 
 If drunkenness is self-induced, 
 No crime by it can be excused, 
 
86 Precedents. 
 
 The Law presumes the man got drunk, 
 Because from crime, he sober, shrunk, 
 And meant to grow insane, and fill 
 His whirling brain with lust to kill. 
 Crime in community is rife ; 
 The gallows teach the worth of life. 
 The loss the hapless orphans met, 
 In law does not create a debt. 
 Such debt, if debt it is, is lost, 
 Their assets must recoup the cost. 
 Ev'n tho' the license did devote 
 The victim, such claim's "too remote," 
 The State will care its gendered poor, 
 So for " Relief," " apply next door." 
 
 Ah ! Judge, that madness was a fact, 
 The crime the State's, tho' their's the act, 
 Those reckless boys, by poison plied, 
 For murder bred, by murder died ! 
 You know it, yet you dragged your brain, 
 Behind th' old Bailey's creaking wain. 
 It ran by "precedent" till crime 
 Danced in his cart, and grew sublime, 
 In sheer indifference to death 
 Spent his last, rope-encircled breath, 
 To drop a joke, on slipping plank 
 Grinned thro' the noose, a mountebank, 
 Making a face at doom, to hear 
 The mob's applauding, parting cheer. 
 
 But he whose jealousy consigned 
 
 His wife to death, had trained his mind 
 
The virtue of Justice impugned. 87 
 
 To grow familiar with the thought 
 Of murder, and the pistol shot 
 Was but the aloe's sudden bloom, 
 Quick product of a century's gloom. 
 Prove patient schooling, prove his skin 
 Was jaundiced, as he neared his sin ; 
 Your argus eyes turn on his wife. 
 Inspect her giddy, thoughtless life, 
 Invade her mother's domicil, 
 Rummage her bed for cause to kill 
 Her froward daughter. Break the lock, 
 That would a hungry sheriff mock, 
 And pour a Drummond light for years 
 On all the smutty household's smears ; 
 Prove bloodshot eyes, and tear- washed face 
 Your "precedent" 's the Sickles' case ! 
 
 Enough ! lest Williams see contempt, 
 Should I with fainting pen attempt 
 Description of the pimps impure, 
 Stall fed by Justice, as a whore 
 Feasts hackmen, who her den prefer 
 With spreeing, leering customer. 
 For ev'n Rothgerber can not bail 
 Him from the honors of a jail, 
 Whose queasy stomach shows disgust 
 When the Court's partner takes a trust, 
 And as Receiver triplicates 
 The fees his senior validates. 
 
 " Lettre de cachet" still the Judge 
 Can use to gratify his grudge ; 
 
88 The Judge s power an anomaly. 
 
 In free America he claims 
 Prerogative that despot shames. 
 Tries his own cause, and sentences 
 To Bastiles, whence is no egress 
 But by his mercy, those who sneer 
 At Justice Shallow's legal lore. 
 
 Man's freedom, at discretion held, 
 
 'Tis tyrant law that judges wield ; 
 
 Casual, uncertain and unknown, 
 
 'Tis different in different men. 
 
 Perchance the weapon used by hate 
 
 To quell an earnest advocate, 
 
 Or to chastise an editor, 
 
 Who, thro' his paper, dares demur 
 
 At implicated meanings brought 
 
 To stretch the statute's narrow thought. 
 
 Ev'n in the best, 'tis at caprice, 
 
 And in the worst 'tis every vice, 
 
 Folly, and passion, man can feel 
 
 Whose power has limit in his will. 
 
 The Court whose theory derides 
 
 Man's wid'ning thought, and cause decides 
 
 By "precedent," must still prolong 
 
 His contest with the crimes that throng 
 
 The ragged time-worn statutes framed 
 
 When Right e'en more than now, was shamed, 
 
 As in a close-sealed coffin pent 
 The mouldering body of a saint 
 Preserves life-like its shape and hue 
 Quick vanishing when brought to view, 
 
A Code demanded. 89 
 
 When air, as with the lightning's stroke, 
 The simulacrum blends in smoke ; * 
 So Courts preserve, and men adore, 
 Its substance gone the shape of power 
 When, if their superstitious awe 
 Dared crush its box, the mould'ring law 
 Would vanish as the people's breath 
 Struck the long-shrined, decaying wraith. 
 
 No hope for Right, 'till mankind turn 
 To Nature, and from her discern : 
 Death has no rights, but swift decay, 
 That Life is poisoned in its sway ; 
 That she, untiring, strives to efface 
 Its shadows from her smiling face, 
 And knows no past, but as a step 
 To higher growth and wider sweep. 
 
 Man must his erring steps retrace, 
 The laws that bind and interlace 
 The social frame he must repeal, 
 And with a better bond anneal 
 Man to his fellow, all to each, 
 Would he a nobler stature reach. 
 
 For that, what aid can he expect 
 From schooled and crippled intellect, 
 Whence Reason's natural force has fled- 
 Scared by the musty tomes are read 
 For legal education ; codes, 
 The outgrowth of man-robbing feuds. 
 
90 Enemies of Labor. 
 
 'Till two things occupy one place 
 At tHfe same moment, all the race 
 Of Lawyers are, perforce, arrayed 
 In solid phalanx, to dissuade 
 From the destruction of a scheme, 
 So long persistent, that they deem 
 It based in Nature, as if Caste 
 Could back to Deity be traced. 
 For if the spongy brain in Coke, 
 Blackstone, Kent, Chitty, lies a-soak, 
 How can it hold the thought refined 
 By Jesus', Plato's, Bacon's, mind. 
 
 Besides, the angry avarice 
 
 Of every silversmith must hiss, 
 
 When Paul declares a God, whose shrine 
 
 No image needs, to prove divine. 
 
 Against you press, in serried ranks, 
 Legions of lenders, troops of banks, 
 Soul-less, immortal, chartered bilks 
 Who scatter rags, that rustling silks 
 By spiders from your muscle spun 
 May flaunt and shimmer in the sun. 
 
 They based on bonds, by Interest fed 
 
 Iron-shod on prostrate Labor tread. 
 
 The twenty million dollars tax 
 
 Which crams their bellies, strips your backs, 
 
 Is fifty millions, measured by 
 
 The lowered wage of Industry. 
 
Bankers. Jews. 91 
 
 That sum they annually suck 
 
 From Labor's spring by untaxed Stock. 
 
 The creatures you by law have made, 
 
 Now dare the force of law deride, 
 
 And Sherman bribed, or Sherman cowed, 
 
 Still robs the poor, to glut the proud, 
 
 And silver spurning, spurns the vote 
 
 Loosed Usury's clutch on Labor's throat ; 
 
 As though the business and intent 
 
 Of human law and government, 
 
 Was robbing for benevolence, 
 
 To Luxury, from Indigence. 
 
 Was levying forced loans on the Poor, 
 
 Wealth's domination to assure. 
 
 And with them band that rat-souled race 
 Of rodent teeth, and greed-carved face, 
 Whose cormorant beak, and glance askew, 
 With servile shrug, reveal the Jew. 
 
 Four thousand years, his pedigree 
 Of legal theft and villainy, 
 He, boasting, traces to the day, 
 Saw Abraham from Shinar stray, 
 Who left Chaldean teraphim 
 Placate with flowers, and votive hymn, 
 That he might grimmer God adore, 
 On unhewn altars, dripping gore. 
 
 As through accusing earth his blood 
 Continuous pours its branching flood, 
 
92 The intolerance of the Jeivish race. 
 
 His foreskin on th' eternal throne 
 Lies pleading merit for each son ; 
 While Esau robs, and Jacob steals, 
 Its occult virtue, crime conceals. 
 O ! wondrous creed ! Hell ne'er can win 
 A soul protect by that foreskin ! 
 
 So thus secure, his race, the pest 
 
 Of Labor, does all climes infest, 
 
 No pirate horde too villainous, 
 
 No tribe on earth too barbarous, 
 
 To lack its carrion-feeding crew, 
 
 To want the harpy-stomached Jew, 
 
 And save where straw-bail makes demand 
 
 For perjured bonds, he owns no land. 
 
 A migratory, homeless herd, 
 
 Whose physiognomy has stirred 
 
 Instinctive scorn, contempt, and hate, 
 
 In nobler breeds of Man, since mate 
 
 Incestuous reared its base-browed spawn, 
 
 The weak to flay, the strong to fawn. 
 
 That Xerxes saw, the most deformed 
 
 Of all earth's tribes that round him swarmed ; 
 
 That's gained no grace or beauty since, 
 
 To save a thief, it slew a prince. 
 
 World sewer, pouring its vile flood 
 
 Thro' Time, unmixt with human blood. 
 
 Accursed, for foreign to mankind, 
 
 Their hideous altars have enshrined 
 
 A puny God, too small to embrace 
 
 With equal arms the human race. 
 
Distinguished from Hebrews. 93 
 
 Yet often Nature conquers blood, 
 
 And washes in her limpid flood 
 
 Birth-poisoned hearts, till thro' them glide 
 
 Unfouled, love's sparkling crystal tide ; 
 
 For Essenes still herd among 
 
 The griping Sadducean throng, 
 
 Who, taught by Nature's broader book, 
 
 Abjure the narrow Pentateuch, 
 
 Blaspheming law, would interlace 
 
 And blend as one, the human race. 
 
 Who seek the temple, thro' a gate, 
 
 Forbidden Pharasaic hate, 
 
 And find a God indwelling there, 
 
 Whose love all men as equals share. 
 
 Aye ! Nature's strong! of such descent 
 To frame a Hebrew, proves intent 
 Fixed deep within her struggling soul, 
 Grows hotter as she nears her goal. 
 For till this age, the bigot race 
 Ne'er turned mankind a smiling face ; 
 And even the fishermen who crept 
 Slow on the path that Jesus stept, 
 Had bitter feuds, ere angel eyes 
 Saw foreskinned saints ascend the skies. 
 
 Some I have met, who 're " circumcised 
 In heart" a phrase the Apostles prized 
 Tho' how, ensmalling that, they gained 
 In " grace," I'll never understand. 
 I know them brimmed with love, perhaps 
 As surgeons sometimes cut for claps, 
 
94 Jews, stranyers among Men. 
 
 They were for issue impotent 
 
 Till knife -slashed creed revealed a vent. 
 
 Tho' they don't like it, I remark, 
 
 They 're never hungry where there's pork ; 
 
 And, clean, because they wash, their plight 
 
 Is not advantaged by the "rite." 
 
 Jews know no country, save where theft, 
 
 By law, has Toil of right bereft. 
 
 If universal Love forbade 
 
 All usury, the Jew would fade 
 
 From Earth, as Otaheitans die 
 
 By Christian sensuality. 
 
 Let Man weigh worth of wheat in ore 
 
 Two stupid generations more, 
 
 The Jews the human race will rob, 
 
 By usury, of the solid globe. 
 
 A nation in each nation, they 
 
 Know Gentiles but as natural prey. 
 
 And Jews whose greed is animate 
 
 By deadly and atavic hate, 
 
 Riot as vermin on the vile, 
 
 And batten as they filth defile. 
 
 All States, where credit fosters trade, 
 
 Whose credit wealth by time is made, 
 
 Harbor their foes, and scratch and bleed, 
 
 While insect usurers on them feed. 
 
 When diabolic thrift has swelled 
 Beyond all limit, men grow wild ; 
 The crazed and tortured victims pour 
 Mercurial ointment on the sore, 
 
Why they are and have been persecuted. 95 
 
 And Love, nor hears, nor heeds their call, 
 As Jews, the lice of Labor, crawl 
 Off earth, to void, in poisoned swarms, 
 From Toil's sun -browned and hairy arms. 
 
 Fat-brained historians relate 
 The crimes wrought by each frenzied State, 
 As though cold-blooded bigots slew, 
 Avenging Calvary on the Jew. 
 
 Not thus they die, 'tis Nature's wrath 
 Each cycle sweeps them from her path. 
 Progress her law : their usuries blight 
 Souls robbed by poverty of light, 
 Whose blind intolerance destroys, 
 While king and priest the spoil enjoys. 
 Religion furnishes excuse, 
 'Tis Nature rids Earth of refuse, 
 For avarice always misses aim, 
 Its present gain is future shame. 
 So in each age is instinct-stirred, 
 Some nation, and Jews massacred, 
 Tortured, and exiled, driven forth, 
 Like Cain, to wander over earth, 
 Proves God on high, again has seen 
 An Abel's blood incarnadine 
 The tides of time, and plies His sword 
 Flaming with vengeance, till the horde 
 Who never mercy's impulse felt, 
 In agony atone their guilt. 
 
 Why pity fools who have been told 
 
 A thousand times the shower-bath 's cold, 
 
96 Their avarice. 
 
 Yet pull the string, and, yelling, crouch 
 In misery beneath its douche. 
 
 Marked ere their eyes distinguish light 
 By Black-art circumcising rite, 
 That dedicates each puling shoot 
 Of Jacob's loins as Hell's recruit, 
 The Jackals of the world, they glean 
 Profit by Famine's eyes unseen, 
 And in the wake of pestilence, 
 Scramble for plague-polluted pence, 
 Dropped by the swollen, speckled corse 
 Quick hustled to its loathsome hearse. 
 
 Their vulture eyes discern afar 
 
 The'reeking carrion of war ; 
 
 They count cadavers, but to sell 
 
 Or buy as markets rise and fall, 
 
 For like Vespasian, they think 
 
 The sheen of gold perfumes its stink. 
 
 Pactolus poured thro' Waterloo 
 
 To satiate a thirsty Jew, 
 
 As laughing Rothschild's subtle scheme 
 
 Into his coffers turned its stream, 
 
 When France and England mourned the slain 
 
 Who fattened Belgium's miry plain, 
 
 And sought for cloth, their grief to drape, 
 
 The Jew monopolized the crape. 
 
 Wherever falsehood, fraud or sham, 
 With stony heart or flabby palm 
 Can forge a paper, clip a coin, 
 Behold a Jew with punch or pen. 
 
Abuse of dependent Labor. 97 
 
 From starving Pariah, his device 
 Will steal the scanty mildewed rice 
 Which England feeds to impotence, 
 Earning his daily three half-pence. 
 To poison feeble-brained Chinese, 
 O'er raving and distracted seas, 
 He smuggles thro' the Monsoon's wrath, 
 For Sycee Silver, opium death. 
 
 When in the dim. dawn-lighted street 
 Bevies of trudging girls you meet, 
 Half- waked, half-clothed, half-combed, half-fed, 
 Whose haste to work leaves prayer unsaid, 
 They're hurrying to the sweater's room, 
 (That Morgue, whence virtue seeks her tomb) 
 To earn such wage as Jews will give, 
 Who undersell mankind and thrive. 
 
 Wages ! My God ! The foreman leers. 
 Complaisance answers through her tears ; 
 The fairest meets his snaky eye, 
 'Lust-glittering through malignity, 
 And, serpent-charmed, submissive crawls 
 In shrinking terror to his coils. 
 Rescue is none ; the cold world's stare 
 Sole answer to her mute despair, 
 Who sells virginity for food, 
 And pregnant, dies to womanhood. 
 
 By hunger driven to nakedness, 
 She endures the circumcised caress, 
 Trades to a Satyr peaceful dream, 
 
98 "Love's labor lost." 
 
 On truckle bed, for gems and shame. 
 And lace and wretchedness in down, 
 Till tired lust leaves her "on the town," 
 To drag along the leering pave 
 Her aching body to the grave, 
 As wrapped in tawdry silken shroud, 
 She joins the painted hags who crowd 
 The cemetery vaults unknelled 
 Though dead as death, from life expelled. 
 
 Rankling remorse torments her day 
 Who, though repentant, dare not pray, 
 For food and raiment earned requite 
 The turpid misery of the night. 
 When love lies bleeding, fainting, torn, 
 Anguished and pricked by lust's foul thorn, 
 The prone and helpless sport of Sin, 
 Pawing her shame-burnt, shuddering skin, 
 Rooting and champing on her breast, 
 Which pants, as hate aglow gives zest 
 To gnawing pleasure's biting bliss, 
 As hell rounds torture with a kiss, 
 And slobbers ganglionic gust 
 Unknown to brutes, felt but by dust, 
 Whose nerves are tindered in its flame, 
 When cold disgust hugs clutching shame. 
 
 Where'er the brain of Labor sifts 
 
 Earth's golden sands from old world drifts, 
 
 For gain, Nomadic cent-per-cent 
 
 Has brought his scale, and pitched his tent. 
 
Paivnshops and War-loans. 99 
 
 Avoirdupois alone he'll trust 
 
 To weigh the worth of miner's dust, 
 
 While pounds apothecary please 
 
 His gladdened, gland-skinned consignees. 
 
 Wherever in the City's slum 
 
 A hag, insane with thirst for rum, 
 
 Would pawn her baby's gown or shoe, 
 
 She seeks, and finds the expectant Jew, 
 
 Beside each palace, built for gin, 
 
 His craft has placed the usurer's den, 
 
 That like a syphon for his drouth, 
 
 Hell's broth conducts from barrel to mouth. 
 
 Wherever a crowned tiger broods, 
 
 How rule a realm where thought intrudes, 
 
 Whether its surges to repress 
 
 By war internal, through police ; 
 
 By exile, hangman, jail and spy, 
 
 The spreading leaven to defy ; 
 
 Or by external war to slake 
 
 Man's thirst for Progress, and evoke 
 
 From flaming hut and plundered town, 
 
 The glory that protects a crown. 
 
 See, by his elbow, Shylock stand, 
 
 With gold and scrip in either hand, 
 
 For usury prepared to lend 
 
 What sum the tyrant needs to send, 
 
 The crazed shoemaker in pursuit 
 
 Of customer that bought his boot, 
 
 Or so, the savage weaver drill, 
 
100 The private Soldiers share of Glory. 
 
 He can at long range tailors kill, 
 
 Or pay informers for the breath 
 
 Of perjury, instinct with death, 
 
 To those, whom Nature puts in van, 
 
 Each age, of struggling, waiting Man. 
 
 Aye ! glad to loan the price of blood, 
 
 He'll chant "Te-Deums!" to the God 
 
 That wins, should Paris hold his fane, 
 
 Or Berlin centre his domain ; 
 
 While Bauer and Paysan homeward crawl 
 
 From battle to their dreary toil, 
 
 And lengthen it an hour each day, 
 
 His swelling interest to pay. 
 
 Or (this, with stumping wooden leg, 
 
 All armless that), both wretches beg 
 
 On Mammon's battle-field, for life 
 
 Made worthless by th' unnatural strife, 
 
 And never, pfennig, one, nor sou, 
 
 The other, get from grinning Jew ; 
 
 While neither ever learn the why 
 
 Of their insensate battle cry. 
 
 By buzzards clustering in the field 
 
 The putrid carcass is revealed, 
 
 Whose stench the croaking swarms afar 
 
 Have smelt, who flock to " Profit's" war. 
 
 So man may know that State corrupt 
 
 Whose Jews to power by gold have crept. 
 
 Across the seas, hear England's wail 
 
 As telephones her wealth assail, 
 
 For while Jew Disraeli talks, 
 
 Jew Rothschild bulls or bears her stocks. 
 
" Honest Money /" "' itil ' 
 
 And here, upon Bankruptcy's brink, 
 
 The nation clings as values shrink. 
 
 Driblet by driblet law has drained, 
 
 What Labor for ten years has gained. 
 
 Toil's money, by ten thousand rills, 
 
 Miasmaed dam of Mammon fills, 
 
 And every field is bared of mould, 
 
 Law-swept to stagnant marsh of gold. 
 
 The aggregated wealth 's outgrown 
 
 Their power to use, who claim to own ; 
 
 And millions multiplied are pressed 
 
 On Sherman's hands for interest ; 
 
 So the robbed Nation guards the pledge, 
 
 And pays them for the privilege,- 
 
 While our law-givers are the tools 
 
 Of " Honest Money ! " yawp of fools 
 
 By Sherman and Jew usurers taught, 
 
 To worship what their hands have wrought. 
 
 Now all the streams that irrigate 
 Your fruitful soil, contaminate 
 With your ground idol, nauseate 
 Your retching, griping, purging State. 
 And bitterer dregs you yet shall quaff, 
 For worshipping that golden calf, 
 For dozen-hatted Moses grins, 
 As every throe new "profit" wins, 
 And excrement and vomit pour 
 Into his coffers, Danae's shower. 
 While Sherman, as his patrons suck 
 The brimming misery, runs his muck, 
 As proud as any little god, 
 
102 Chartered Thieves. 
 
 To see the weals his playful rod 
 Inflicts on wretches doomed to feel 
 The pains of his financial skill. 
 
 See how their ranks aligned reveal 
 The Savings Banks, create to steal. 
 Philanthropy turns common thief, 
 Creates a bank upon belief, 
 And Usurer, as Philanthropist, 
 Discounts Man's confidence in Christ. 
 
 The tramping laziness that begs, 
 
 Earning its offal by its legs ; 
 
 That snivels at your kitchen doors, 
 
 And for " Swate Jesus,"" food implores ; 
 
 That, trespassing upon the earth, 
 
 From Love draws tears, from Mammon mirth. 
 
 The brawling " sport," whose breath defiles 
 
 The courtezan on whom he smiles ; 
 
 Whose gems blaze on his putrid heart, 
 
 As cogged dice decorate his shirt ; 
 
 Who in Gin's palace damns your cause, 
 
 And squand'ring plunder, bawls of laws. 
 
 Are each a paragon of grace, 
 
 Contrasted with that viler race, 
 
 Whose sordid luxuries, well won 
 
 Behind Law's shield, their crimes atone. 
 
 For whom bribed justice aids straw-bail 
 
 Dispel the horrors of the jail ; 
 
 For whose defense best counsel plead, 
 
 Assigned by judges to their need ; 
 
 For whom Cook County jurors feel 
 
Hercules and the Hydra. 103 
 
 Such interest in their fellows' weal, 
 With garments all unsinged they stroll, 
 Through your indictments with their spoil. 
 
 They for deposits advertise, 
 
 By trumpeting their charities, 
 
 In conscience tortured, if they meet, 
 
 And don't improve, a chance to cheat ; 
 
 For conscience always interferes, 
 
 Save where self-interest appears; 
 
 And meekly bow the scheming head 
 
 To crave God's blessing on the bread 
 
 Curst by the widow's sobs, who saw 
 
 Her children houseless, by the law ; 
 
 Curst by the suicide, who glares 
 
 From Hades, shuddering at their prayers. 
 
 Where these their robbing statutes write, 
 
 Labor has choice 'twixt fight and flight, 
 
 As Hercules in vain assailed 
 
 The Lernsean hydra, and bewailed 
 
 His wasted blows, as each slain head 
 
 Its duplicated horror bred, 
 
 So Labor's might is spent in vain 
 
 As Usury girds his hopeless pain, 
 
 His burdens ever higher rise, 
 
 For while he adds,^he multiplies. 
 
 The power of Gold to reproduce 
 
 Is endless war, that knows no truce. 
 
 O ! Brother ! the infernal womb, 
 
 Whose voided vermin blights your home, 
 
 Hot iron must sear ere peace is won, 
 
 And Earth is ruled from Labor's throne. 
 
104 Competition. 
 
 All Interest adds production's cost 
 Must be to Labor wholly lost, 
 While the consumers power to buy 
 Is limited by Usury. 
 
 Against you, all to wealth who creep, 
 By selling dear and buying cheap. 
 Whose scales their thieving profits win, 
 And weigh out more than they weigh in. 
 Unregistered as thieves, they feed 
 Their fellows upon poisoned bread, 
 Buttered with lard and turmeric ; 
 Their sugar grit with dust of brick. 
 Skilled in adulterating arts, 
 They drive the honest from our marts, 
 Yet Man can't see adulteration 
 Direct result of competition. 
 
 Their cunning, shallow brains contrive 
 By changing Fashion styles to thrive. 
 A cringing, counter-jumping race, 
 With lackered smile on frozen face, 
 The simp'ring simpletons to greet 
 Who flaunt their furbelows on the street, 
 (With patent bosoms, babes that bilk 
 Their scant supply of azure milk), 
 Whose longing eyes in raptures feast 
 On windows, like a strumpet, dressed 
 In gaudy splendor, to entice 
 From customers a higher price. 
 Not theirs the calm, creative joy 
 Of muscle trained to mind's employ ; 
 
Servitude of "Profit " seekers. 105 
 
 Of eyes with gladdened instinct warm, 
 As thought in matter finds a form, 
 Shaped in that ecstacy of pain 
 Felt by the brooding genius' brain. 
 The workman's time its worth declares ; 
 Their value sells the factory's wares; 
 Neither degraded bargaining, when 
 On equal footing men meet men. 
 But the retailer's sickly smile 
 Must hide his spleen, regorge his bile, 
 When ladies to his counter stroll, 
 And, babbling, make the dog unroll 
 A hundred bales, then streetward flop, 
 Unbuying, from the tumbled shop. 
 Th' unhappy wight, tho' torn with care 
 How he to-morrow's draft will " square," 
 Heartsick with dread, must force grimace 
 To wrinkle pleasure in his face ; 
 With tear-filled eyes, must rub his hands, 
 Soft-soaping buyers whose demands 
 For lowered price he meets with lies 
 That crawl thro' baser flatteries. 
 No slavery as his so vile, 
 Whose business forces him defile 
 His honor with his fluent tongue 
 For profit, by its wagging won. 
 The serf 's a single master's thrall, 
 But he, poor wretch ! is slave to all. 
 Protean in mendacity 
 His paid note proves integrity, 
 Tho' ev'ry dollar meets the debt 
 With perjury's saliva 's wet. 
 
 8 
 
106 The warrior clerk. 
 
 Skilled divers merits to disclose 
 Of bands and stripes in ladies' hose ; 
 Gaining huge profit from chemise, 
 Identical with Eugenie's ; 
 Boasting the beauties in their stores 
 Of latest modes of Paris whores ; 
 Wise in each texture, hue, and shade 
 Wins gold from vanity for trade ; 
 Their busy, dollar-blinking brain 
 Can harbor nought but plans for gain ; 
 And Labor's rights or Labor's wrongs, 
 Are meaningless as nursery songs 
 To those who find their profits in 
 Low wages to the man-machine. 
 
 Each starveling soul whose squeak for " cash," 
 
 Earns his dyspeptic stomach "hash," 
 
 Who crowds his unsexed, simpering face 
 
 Into his sister's natural place, 
 
 To bask in his employers' smile, 
 
 Musters in Mammon's rank and file, 
 
 And Tittlebat, by musk perfumed, 
 
 By tax in uniform costumed, 
 
 With flaccid muscle, soft as dough, 
 
 Subdued by tape and calico, 
 
 Becomes Society's defense 
 
 'Gainst Law-created Indigence. 
 
 Grow varicose his thin calves' veins, 
 As he by musket loaded, trains, 
 To make himself, by patient drill, 
 Fit part of vast trained mob to kill, 
 
The Railroads. 107 
 
 Should Toil dare clench his grimy fists, 
 While struggling to dispel the mists, 
 Which Vested Rights forever flood 
 Upon his thorny, trackless road. 
 
 His foolish teeth, well trained to smile, 
 Pence from man's pocket to beguile, 
 Show scornful canines, when the knees 
 Of poverty, his tastes displease. 
 His flopping ears submissive droop, 
 When fine clothes at his counter group, 
 But like a terrier's stand, in rage, 
 When Labor asks for higher wage ; 
 With feeble frowns his eyebrows perk, 
 At your complaint of over- work ; 
 Nature's relief he would deny, 
 Who grants the hurt, the right to cry, 
 Could paltry hope fruition know, 
 And his small world receive him " Co." 
 
 Lo ! Here behold ! aflame with wrath, 
 Greed's champion, iron-clad Goliath. 
 Across the land he thund'rous strides, 
 And Labor's shrinking host derides. 
 Your piteous cry for "higher wage," 
 Which jarred his dividends, waked his rage. 
 Now mailed and helmeted, his frown 
 Affrights the hamlet, daunts the town, 
 As in their streets he cannon plants, 
 Whose grape inquires what Labor wants, 
 While his deep-planned, all-grasping law, 
 Holds your obsequious courts in awe. 
 
108 Why the State should manage them. 
 
 The Railway power, whose Philistines 
 Your Congress from your Justice screens, 
 At them her blunt sword strikes in vain, 
 For pass-bribed judges wear their chain, 
 Holding their offices but to job, 
 Their " fast-freight lines," stock-holders rob, 
 While the " express " and " palace-car," 
 Join, every balance-sheet to mar. 
 They " Credits Mobilier " invent 
 Fat contracts to themselves to grant, 
 Thus trebling cost to build, force freights, 
 To cost producers treble rates. 
 With venal statesmen part their gain, 
 And trade with stocks in souls of men. 
 Callous and surd they, vacant, stare, 
 While hunger moans unheeded prayer, 
 For food by bounteous Earth supplied. 
 For food by their high tolls denied ; 
 While scowling Heaven inhales the taint 
 Of corn for fuel, Labor's plaint, 
 Feeling his brow, its waste sweat drip, 
 Because it would not pay to ship, 
 Since unchecked Usury declares 
 Its dividends on watered shares. 
 
 The railroad is the improved highway, 
 Science has granted Man to-day. 
 Why don't he take it ? See the fool 
 To cursed Monopolists pay toll, 
 When he might have, at cost, his freight, 
 Were Railroads managed by the State, 
 And showers of wealth, distributed, 
 
The Granger. 109 
 
 Would fertilize his field and mead, 
 Where now Law's gathered torrents tear 
 Across the land and leave it bare. 
 
 And the dull granger whose thick wit 
 
 Has never found the place to hit 
 
 This pooling, earth-oppressing curse, 
 
 Whose Private Right trails Labor's hearse, 
 
 In shape of box-car to his grave, 
 
 4 Gainst the Commune will rant and rave, 
 
 Which guarantees his right to dwell 
 
 On land he does not want to sell, 
 
 And shows his boy the where and how 
 
 To find area for his plow, 
 
 Saving him weary years of toil, 
 
 Spent earning what Man owns, the soil, 
 
 As twenty years ago, he brayed 
 
 At Abolitionists, afraid 
 
 That a " free nigger's" grace might dart 
 
 Love's arrows thro' his daughter's heart. 
 
 With all his power will stem the flood, 
 
 Now gathering to sweep the brood 
 
 Of fierce Philistia, from the green 
 
 And flower-decked vales of Palestine. 
 
 Because they think " What is is Right" 
 
 He, and his God, must Progress fight. 
 
 Against you stands each canting knave, 
 Whose harpy hands continuous crave 
 From Dives pay, denied by God, 
 Whose service is its own reward. 
 The woolly wolves in accord whine 
 For Human Law, 'gainst Law divine ; 
 
110 Nothing lies like an Epitaph. 
 
 Anathemas, soul-blighting, howl, 
 If thought invades the was.tes they prowl, 
 And Labor hold in tangling creed, 
 While daily he is sheared by Greed. 
 
 When in the sombre funeral file, 
 
 The empty case of Dives soul, 
 
 A stomach parted from a purse 
 
 By death, digested, in a hearse 
 
 Slow wends, reluctant to its tomb, 
 
 Their onioned smiles dispel the gloom, 
 
 Who peer thro' crape, and cozy, loll 
 
 In the first coach behind the pall, 
 
 Where Mammon's priest the mourner cheers, 
 
 And dessicates decorum's tears. 
 
 " His virtues live ! Despite the bier 
 
 He is not dead ! his million 's here ! " 
 
 The thronged church from the sermon knows 
 
 Dives in Christ, has found repose, 
 
 With Lazar, Abram's bosom shares 
 
 Up-borne to Heaven on purchased prayers. 
 
 And granite epitaphs portray 
 
 Such virtues in the sordid clay, 
 
 That future ages are acquaint 
 
 With the hoar usurer, as a saint. 
 
 He is not dead, his soul survives, 
 Metempsychosed, immortal lives, 
 He is not dead, his purse-proud heir 
 Inherits his metallic stare, 
 And bred in luxury, to know 
 His fellow as his slave, or foe, 
 
Rehoboam and Vanderbilt. Ill 
 
 A prayer for mercy, will but guide 
 To greater rage, his bloated pride. 
 He boasts his little finger grown 
 Far thicker than his father's loin, 
 And scorpions for Israel's race, 
 The whips of Solomon replace, 
 When Rehoboam in purple born, 
 Ascends the lion-guarded throne. 
 With callous heart, and scheming brain, 
 Living his harpy life again, 
 So see the younger Vanderbilt 
 Strive to surpass his father's guilt, 
 And like a world- wide Kraken draw 
 With iron-arms, and prehensile law 
 The gain of myriads to his maw. 
 While every priest with solemn tone, 
 Nasal with sanctity, will own 
 God's wisdom in his tyranny, 
 For " God's a potter, men are clay. 
 This amphora by power divine, 
 Was dedicate to brim with wine. 
 For all the powers that be on earth 
 Of Wisdom Infinite have birth, 
 To Nero, or to Antonine, 
 As it pleaseth him he doth assign, 
 The government of men, and they 
 Must be submissive and obey." 
 
 O ! Brothers, hear these organs grind 
 The notes they're set to. March of mind ! 
 Is Chaos, while these brains jejune, 
 Grind alway at the same old tune. 
 
112 Bible class lessons. 
 
 While thieves and prostitutes are bred 
 In swarms, by want to error led ; 
 While from the reeking, undrained street, 
 The gamin hastes with flying feet, 
 Despite his father's anxious cares, 
 Despite his mother's sobbing prayers, 
 Despite his sister's brimming eye, 
 And the babe's prattling mimicry, 
 On his swift journey to the cell 
 Whence Mammon fills the gaps in Hell. 
 These Chadbands wipe their greasy chins 
 And belch of Christ-atoned sins. 
 Their rage is warmed at the fierce brood, 
 Who spoiled the world before the flood ; 
 They preach of Jews' innumerous quail, 
 And Jonah's nauseated whale ; 
 How puffing Levites, fed on tithes, 
 Cannons and catapults despise, 
 As in a week with horns they blow 
 Prostrate the walls of Jericho. 
 How Moses seeks in vain the place 
 Where angels buried him, to trace ; 
 Of how the sun halts in the sky, 
 Bewildered by fierce Joshua's cry, 
 That Amorites may see to die. 
 
 Perhaps erroneous creed wakes ire. 
 Then see their souls, lit with the fire 
 Of theologic hate, pour strong, 
 Hot warning from the burning tongue. 
 To show the hopeless state of those, 
 Who creed "Homousion" oppose. 
 
Dangers of Heresy. 113 
 
 They range the Gospel, law, and psalms 
 
 To prove just how "a diphthong damns, 
 
 And that creed " Homoiousion," 
 
 No works can purge, no faith atone. 
 
 That still more dread mistake they make, 
 
 Who hope on " Heterousion " stake ; 
 
 Till gaping congregations dread 
 
 An extra comma in their creed, 
 
 And at its honest aspect quail, 
 
 As though it had a scorpion's tail ; 
 
 And while they prove sole creed that ' good 
 
 Is orte that can't be understood, 
 
 The grinning skeptic must award 
 
 The praise once from forecastle heard, 
 
 Of Chaplain, on the "Man of War," 
 
 By wondering, amazed Jack Tar, 
 
 Who all superfluous language scorned, 
 
 " Some lies ! Some lingo ! All damned larned." 
 
 Boundless as love his ignorance, 
 His thought gross as his arrogance, 
 Hear Moody bellowing, propound 
 Unsyntaxed gospel. Tuneless sound 
 His trumpet blares, whose discord shocks 
 All save the flop-eared orthodox. 
 
 With dullness flickering on his face, 
 He prattles of the "means of grace ; " 
 Tells how all men to hell were doomed, 
 Save for an Infinite exhumed. 
 Explains to fools how cross besmeared 
 Placates a Deity who reared 
 
114 " Original Sin.' ' 
 
 On earth as in a nursery 
 
 Mankind for endless misery, 
 
 To choke Hell's chimneys with the soot 
 
 Of slow combustion, 'cause the fruit 
 
 That Eve ate, breeding, disagreed 
 
 O ! Rhadamanthus ! what a creed. 
 
 Logic is logic. When the child 
 
 Lies in the womb, by sin defiled, 
 
 Faith plants beside the dying bed 
 
 A bigot with a shaven head, 
 
 To watch her slow and laboring sighs, 
 
 Till death's film gathers on her eyes, ' 
 
 Eager to seek, with keen-whet knife, 
 
 And bring to day the fluttering life ; 
 
 For should its faint pulsations cease 
 
 Ere he had coated it with grease, 
 
 His God would clutch it, and condemn 
 
 The fiendling to eternal flame. 
 
 But chrism ed, lo ! his fingers slip, 
 
 And angels aid its skyward trip, 
 
 Rejoicing it has 'scaped his ire, 
 
 To pule with Saints in Heaven's choir. 
 
 O ! God was merciful, to plan 
 Earth, coursed with veins petrolean, 
 To make great whales, with sperm replete, 
 Else Mercy might forsake her seat. 
 
 The flabby thought of Man's nonage 
 They grave expound, with aspect sage, 
 Where painted windows make an air 
 Unreal as their vapid prayer, 
 
?e kind to the Sister, not many may know" 115 
 
 Where sneers a last month's bonnet greet, 
 
 And broadcloth snores on cushioned seat. 
 
 To Paradise their hearers flock, 
 
 'Twixt neat hedge rows on graveled walk, 
 
 As narrow path, beset with thorns, 
 
 Their unctuous eloquence adorns. 
 
 To soothe iheir money-grasping herds, 
 
 They strain the sense of Jesus' words, 
 
 Whose Heaven rewards the loving poor, 
 
 Whose Hell the rich man must endure, 
 
 Aye ! must ! because he in advance, 
 
 Claimed earth, his Heaven, at their expense. 
 
 Their sanctity is in the coat, 
 
 Whose single-row'd black buttons show 't, 
 
 Which serve them as phylactery 
 
 Their prototype, the Pharisee. 
 
 They curse the Theatre and Ball, 
 
 But when the husband's absent, call, 
 
 To poach, with risk at minimum, 
 
 Upon the unprotected home. 
 
 Their Heaven 's below a frill of lace, 
 
 Their Hell is, hunger for a sauce ; 
 
 They mock their God, on sal'ries fed, 
 
 In praying for their daily bread. 
 
 In Mass or Love-feast they divide, 
 
 With gluttons, Jesus' flesh and blood, 
 
 Sole remnant left of law divine 
 
 Which gave men equal bread and wine. 
 
 Oh ! were he here, the dusty Tramp 
 Would seal their foreheads with the stamp, 
 Branding the beetling brow of Cain, 
 
116 The modern Evangelist. 
 
 Who sneer to see their brothers slain 
 
 By insufficient food, and rate 
 
 Their hunger as inordinate, 
 
 Because it is unsatisfied 
 
 With bread well soaked in Croton's tide. 
 
 (You've read of Foulon he thought hay 
 
 Sufficient, and he had his day.) 
 
 That Man at sight the knaves might know 
 
 Who, fat-jowled, Zion's trumpet blow. 
 
 Might pierce the thin disguise of each, 
 
 Whose love has bloom in flowers of speech ; 
 
 Who, answering " Call of Jesus ! " went 
 
 As chaplain to a regiment 
 
 Leaping o'er corses, that its wrath 
 
 Left stark on its prayer-hallowed path, 
 
 To worship Glory, and declare 
 
 The Christianity of War. 
 
 Might shew them traitors to their kind 
 
 Blind leaders of the stumbling blind 
 
 Whose selfish pews, salvation priced, 
 
 Force Reason to detest their Christ. 
 
 What altar 's that they bow before, 
 Whose gaudy temple spurns the poor? 
 Where Fashion throngs in gay attire, 
 Called to her prayer by jingling spire, 
 To see the perfumed parish bull, 
 With droning rhetoric, compel 
 His soporific manuscript, 
 Each page in stronger laud'num dipped, 
 To shower its poppies on the pews' 
 Contributing his revenues ? 
 
Palace Cars on the "Narrow Way." 117 
 
 While sniffles, done to order, show 
 The clause where tears should overflow, 
 And whine, and dampened kerchief, fit 
 The place where pathos has been writ. 
 Where once a week the organ pours 
 Its grand crescendos to the stars, 
 And on its waves of harmony floats 
 The quartette's praise in gold-tuned notes. 
 Where, save that hour, their drowsy God 
 Dreams in his dusty solitude, 
 Nor heeds within his sacred walls, 
 Tho' from the street hoarse Famine calls. 
 What God, but Mammon, could attain 
 Amid Earth's squalor, Heaven's Nirvan' ? 
 
 Aye ! Mammon owns the church called Christ's, 
 
 And for your foes you've all his priests, 
 
 Who on his bounties thrive, and shine 
 
 In rich apparel at his shrine ; 
 
 Who deave man's ear with jangling din 
 
 Of diverse modes for shriving sin. 
 
 Who tell how God in justice slew 
 
 An Innocent, and at the view 
 
 Of water from his spear-pierced side, 
 
 Gushing with blood, was mollified, 
 
 And now imputes that innocence 
 
 To whitewash guilt, in penitence. 
 
 Sometimes 'tis God himself who dies, 
 Sometimes a man, to Heaven who hies, 
 And sits 'long-side, to intercede 
 For those,. eternally decreed . 
 
118 Sundry modes of Vicarious Atonement. 
 
 His clients all the others lost, 
 Are into endless torments tossed, 
 And give congenial work to fiends, 
 Happy obeying God's commands. 
 
 Some say his mother helps, and some 
 Swear that's a flagrant lie of Rome ; 
 Some think the saints perhaps of use, 
 Who surplus righteousness produce, 
 And drop their linked good works to earth 
 To haul up sinners, &c. ! 
 But all on the main point agree, 
 That Man earns Heaven by deputy, 
 That pain for all 's the eternal lot 
 Save those for whom a Christ-paid scot 
 Does the unbalanced score adjust ; 
 O ! what a pity, God gave Trust ! 
 
 'Tis a dull legend, cribbed from creed 
 Of fierce Phenicia, who saw bleed, 
 On royal altar sacrificed, 
 The son of her power-grasping priest ; 
 Mixt with tales told by travelers 
 Of Brahm's and Chrisna's avatars, 
 Aye, growing wilder as each mile, 
 They journey, adds its codicil, 
 To testament, bequeathing men 
 Salvation bought, and mercy slain. 
 
 Miscomprehended theories 
 Of gold abjuring Essenes, 
 With Eleusinian mysteries 
 
Inspiration ! 119 
 
 Padded with rural miracles, 
 
 Which in contrast with Moses' seem 
 
 Like visions of an idiot's dream. 
 
 Beside phantasmagoria 
 
 Of opium born, in minds astray ; 
 
 "Written by the slow hand of Faith, 
 
 Rejoicing in his mental death, 
 
 Whose lolling tongue moved with the style 
 
 That shaped his letters, to defile 
 
 The fabling, papyritic scroll, 
 
 Recording the ideas droll, 
 
 That deaf men have of martial tunes, 
 
 That blind men have of phasing moons. 
 
 The copy-books of baby Man 
 Unpunctuate, without a plan, 
 All vowelless, so each may choose 
 Translating, a's, e's, i's, o's, u's, 
 In every sentence, and rejoice, 
 If one in ten gives thought a voice. 
 
 Inspired ! ha ! ha ! Good word ! Inspired, 
 
 Man adolescent, is required 
 
 To think each manuscript uncouth, 
 
 As queer to sight, as strange to truth. 
 
 Inspired ! Each dusty legend shows 
 
 That mind was wearing baby clothes ; 
 
 Copied by monks who thought that God 
 
 Waste ingenuity employed, 
 
 In framing Man, with adequate 
 
 Machinery to propagate ; 
 
 Who thought that Heaven the gelt attain 
 
120 Ezekiel vs. Moses. 
 
 With greater ease than Nature's men. 
 Inspired ! Lest thought its readers vex, 
 The " Holy Book " has no index, 
 For even a peasant might compare 
 The contradictions that appear 
 On every page, as Reason scans 
 Its ignorance, and knows it Man's. 
 
 Yet through its drivel wisdom glows, 
 
 And clearer sense than words inclose, 
 
 Is felt in thought, beyond the reach 
 
 Of halting, undeveloped speech ; 
 
 The heart's nutrition of its lore, 
 
 Drips balm and perfume in the core 
 
 Of being, as its currents thrill 
 
 Response to Nature's unit will. 
 
 And sense, that lacks expression, deep 
 
 In central life, where embryos sleep, 
 
 Where force, quiescent, waits its birth, 
 
 Lengthening the soul's stretched bond to earth; 
 
 Seems nebulous, too far for sight, 
 
 Till Reason proves its starry light. 
 
 Instincts no reason can define, 
 
 Beyond its grasp, above its line, 
 
 Tremble to pulses vaguely stirred, 
 
 Quiver to accents faintly heard, 
 
 Spoken by far-off tongues that call 
 
 For answer from the dumb earth-thrall, 
 
 In wordless meaning, half unveiled 
 
 To apprehension, music-swelled, 
 
 As mind through longing ears may catch 
 
 The concords of angelic speech. 
 
Sin is Death" 121 
 
 For trembling hands the chords have felt 
 
 Untuned by hate and broke by guilt 
 
 Through which each soul the passion feels 
 
 Of Love that blesses, as it heals. 
 
 For human tongues have striven to voice 
 
 Heaven's liquid melodies across 
 
 The sad and solemn dirge, that drones 
 
 Around the path of life, and moans * 
 
 Faith's hopeless and discordant wail, 
 
 How misery procreates for hell. 
 
 Olla podrida ! 'Tis a dish 
 
 In which flesh haters can find fish, 
 
 While vis a vis, of different taste, 
 
 Enjoy, as well as they, the feast. 
 
 Brain cobwebs, woven by the ell 
 
 In navel-searching hermit's cell, 
 
 And wrapped round Plato's " Logos," seen 
 
 Prancing on clouds by Constantine, 
 
 Upon his bloody path enticed 
 
 To empire by a murd'rous Christ ; 
 
 All pinned upon his cross, who strove 
 
 To shatter power by human love, 
 
 And bled, as will his like until 
 
 The martyrs turn and learn to kill. 
 
 Sin ! when an axe stroke barks the tree, 
 'T is cured by Nature's chemistry ; 
 Bat all in vain her healing art 
 When the keen edge has cleft the heart. 
 Nature is unit, her control 
 Obeyed by matter, so by soul ; 
 9 
 
122 Jesus vs. Christ. 
 
 And her recuperative force 
 
 Don't resurrect, but blends the corse. 
 
 The soul that 's dead in sin, decays, 
 
 Losing identity and place ; 
 
 No sacrifice can sin atone ; 
 
 It dies, but when it is out-grown. 
 
 Aye. Sin must be eternal Death, 
 
 For Life in Love alone hath breath. 
 
 Let these adore their gilded God 
 
 Who sup with Usury, fellow Fraud, 
 
 The whip of knotted cord yet knows 
 
 The tribe that felt its vengeful blows. 
 
 The way-worn traveler, doing good, 
 
 Who in the grain fields found his food, 
 
 Who taught that wealth must needs be crime, 
 
 And better loved a Lazar's grime, 
 
 Who lived among the destitute, 
 
 Whose tears reformed the dissolute ; 
 
 For love's rebuke dissolves the heart 
 
 Which frenzies by invective's smart ; 
 
 Who taught the lender must refrain 
 
 From hoping to receive again ; 
 
 Who sought the lost, who helped the weak, 
 
 Wiser than all, yet none so meek : 
 
 Who claimed no cot to shield his head, 
 
 Who lived for love, and for love bled. 
 
 Yet thundered Nature's thorough hate 
 
 Of pauper souls, whose gaudy state, 
 
 With gold and tinsel decorate, 
 
 Fluttering their span in pomp and pride, 
 
 The Brotherhood of man, denied. 
 
-Religion " lorn of fear. 123 
 
 What has he, with these pulpiteers, 
 
 Who salary-fattened, tickle ears. 
 
 Who hypocritic, masquerade 
 
 Thro' life in their soul-saving trade, 
 
 Who, thro' their dainty lives, ne'er meet 
 
 An " overalls " save on the street, 
 
 Or save when creed lies like a pall 
 
 On a dead brain, and over all 
 
 The instincts with which Nature tends 
 
 To shape a world of working friends. 
 
 In glooms of ignorance, their control 
 Has blighted brain and shriveled soul, 
 Has held, in superstition's spell, 
 Mankind by slavish dread of Hell. 
 O'er groping centuries they brood, 
 Engend'ring their revolting creed, 
 Whose Deity, with raptured ears, 
 The endless moans of Misery hears, 
 From burning lake where wretches writhe, 
 Who're damned to square arrears of tithe : 
 While shiv'ring saints, with hoarsened throat, 
 On clouds, catarrhed, through ether float 
 And. chant his praises, golden crowned, 
 To harps unrosined, and untuned. 
 
 The most malignant hatred known, 
 
 Is gendered in the canting drone, 
 
 By infidelity, debarred 
 
 From rack, and thumb-screw, stake and cord, 
 
 Who by the Age denied repast 
 
 On blood of heretics, finds a feast 
 
124 Theologic Hate the Priest. 
 
 The sad remains of luxury 
 Enjoyed in his prosperity 
 In hope of future suffering 
 For those who mock his blunted sting. 
 
 He who, his brother threats with hell, 
 Would plunge him in its lowest cell, 
 And lose the key, lest Mercy ope 
 The prison-door, to let in Hope. 
 
 What is a priest ? A thing that 's vowed 
 Itself 'twixt God and Man to crowd. 
 Where Hate and Ignorance make space 
 'Tis filled up by that vacant face, 
 Of thought incapable, yet stirred 
 With feverish desire to gird 
 At all, who would the problem broach, 
 How Man to God may make approach. 
 
 Behold him wider force apart 
 The loving God and loving heart, 
 Distorting death that lives by birth, 
 And moves Man's debris from the earth, 
 Because his progress else must drag 
 The sniveling dotard, mumbling hag, 
 'Till shadowed by Azrael's wings, 
 The devotee in terror clings 
 To life, as tho' earth's atmosphere 
 Held all God's love, and outside, fear 
 Met boundless wrath, whose pains immerse 
 A woeful, shrieking universe. 
 Tho' Nature dizens out the tomb 
 
Damnation before judgment. 125 
 
 With fresher verdure, he with doom 
 Thrusts her kind hands away, and waves 
 Hell's ensigns o'er life springing graves. 
 He, "profit " to his purse to scare, 
 Invents a death beyond despair, 
 Leaves consciousness and worms contest 
 Soul's empire thro' its long unrest. 
 For, in the churchyard's pestilent soil 
 It hears its earth-friends' hopeless wail, 
 Aware of its abandonment, 
 Forever, by their sobbed lament, 
 And helpless feels corruption crawl 
 Loathsome and lusty thro' its thrall, 
 Swelled by the agonies of pain 
 Felt by the rotting, brooding train. 
 Aye ! hears the accusing angels cry 
 Its listed crimes, and amplify 
 The endless anguish of its bode, 
 Before the judgment seat of God. 
 
 Licked by the flaming tongues that leap 
 By his device, above their sleep, 
 Who in God's-acre lie at rest, 
 Soft-pillowed upon Nature's breast, 
 To scare each timid proselyte 
 Who, blear-eyed, blinks at Reason's light, 
 In starched and rustling overshirt 
 See him vehemently exhort 
 Survivors to repent, and look 
 Cross-wise, in dread of worser luck. 
 Aye ! see the mumbling villain vaunt 
 How Mercy 's moved but by his chant, 
 
126 The ^Medicine Man" 
 
 From Purgatorial fires to grant 
 Relief to scorching, sizzling souls, 
 Twirled on the devil's spit, whose howls 
 Wake Heaven's derision, till his palms 
 By Faith are filled with pity's alms. 
 For Gold has power ; beyond the grave 
 Its yellow claws can reach, and save. 
 
 Where man is vilest, fattest seen 
 The canting would-be go-between. 
 As Science, for her widening spheres 
 Asks fact-fed brains, he disappears ; 
 Slowly ! So slowly ! close he'll cleave 
 To rented pews, while fools believe. 
 
 From Patton to th' Ojibwennos 
 
 Is not so far as you'd suppose ! 
 
 I've seen him in a breech-clout there 
 
 Howling to God a prancing prayer ; 
 
 And here, in surplice, heard him plain 
 
 That same old prayer, he prayed for rain ! 
 
 Th' Ojibway Patton never saw 
 
 A weather notice, this one ! Faugh ! 
 
 From age to age mens' brains ferment 
 
 And leaven life with discontent. 
 
 The dead in thought are those that mourn 
 
 The dead past, stinking in its urn. 
 
 The lowest type of life is that 
 
 With shell outside, and inside, fat. 
 
 To it are bigots kin ; they dwell 
 
 In creeds as mussel in its.shelj. 
 
The Spiritual Oyster. 127 
 
 Develop them, they but disclose 
 
 How big each little mussel grows : 
 
 For shut within his stifling cell, 
 
 He has but little room to swell ; 
 
 So, to expand, outside his creed 
 
 Must find his force, and growing bleed, 
 
 Till all his little pool shows tinge, 
 
 Whene'er his fellows squeeze his hinge. 
 
 Example ? See on Thomas' back 
 
 A narrow, out-grown shelly speck, 
 
 His brethren pinch it, hear him shout 
 
 " Auch ! I'll get in ! I am not out ! " 
 
 Then hear Swing, who with half a Christ 
 
 His theater can fill, insist, 
 
 That if the mussel 's grown a whale, 
 
 The pond should bear its flopping tail. 
 
 O ! Swing, O ! Thomas, what mistake 
 
 In end so great, as to forsake 
 
 Nature's broad volume, whose each page 
 
 Well read, would make a fool, a sage, 
 
 And ponder over dog-eared leaves 
 
 That only Ignorance believes. 
 
 Why squeeze these husks of sapless thought 
 
 With wretchedness to mankind fraught, 
 
 When Nature's juices fill her cup 
 
 With wisdom pearled for who dare sup. 
 
 Do notions of the Infinite, 
 
 Of Sin and Holiness, Wrong and Right, 
 
 Display in Man, exception strange 
 
 To law of slow, but constant change, 
 
 Which, from his myriad discontents, 
 
 Develops strength in stumbling sense? ;, 
 
128 Creed vs. Progress. 
 
 Has man in any Christian creed 
 
 Found ultimate of moral need ? 
 
 Something so fixed, invariable, 
 
 He can't beyond its limit swell ? 
 
 Something which Reason must admit 
 
 For every social phase is fit ? 
 
 Some system reared so wide and high 
 
 That o'er it Progress can not fly, 
 
 So firmly grouted, and so deep 
 
 That 'neath it Progress can not creep ? 
 
 No ! Pundits ! Brahmins ! Look ! the star 
 Which yesterday was fixed, afar 
 In the high heavens beyond their ken, 
 Now swings above their heads, and men 
 Laugh at the smoky lantern light 
 Pendant to tail of Chinese kite. 
 The dragon that appeared so high 
 And fearful in their frightened sky, 
 Is shaped of paper, tallow lit, 
 And scales that scared them wake their wit. 
 By every eye the fraud 's discerned ; 
 The wise and foolish, simple, learned, 
 Each finds his Reason to dissent 
 At Creed's preposterous firmament, 
 And all contemptuous, point the twine 
 That floats the star they thought divine. 
 The Star that one epoch dismayed, 
 With sneers, by its successor 's weighed, 
 While prophets throng with purblind eyes 
 Peering thro' mists at empty skies, 
 And in the empyrean show 
 
To-day's Religion to-morrow's Mythology. 129 
 
 Another tallow dip aglow, 
 
 And to another dragon's scare 
 
 Man's trembling knees are bent in prayer, 
 
 Until his quickened sight reveals 
 
 The pasted monster, as he kneels, 
 
 Bobbing behind the chimney-pot, 
 
 On which its tangled string has caught. 
 
 The ideals of a by-gone age 
 That nursed its dolt and fed its sage, 
 Revolt their children, whose disgust 
 Spits out their sapless, cindered crust. 
 To-day the God is criticized, 
 To-morrow he'll be analyzed, 
 Before whose creed-erected throne 
 Men yesterday lay cowed and prone. 
 Product of Nature, her Son shames 
 His mother, as his gross faith claims 
 Some intermeddling, prayer-waked force 
 To change her law and turn her course. 
 The wheels of progress, while Man prays, 
 Stick in the mud till he decays, 
 For Hercules ne'er aided zeal 
 That put no shoulder to the wheel. 
 
 As springs burst sparkling from Earth's veins, 
 
 So thought pours out from fact-fed brains ; 
 
 Fill them with legends, mysteries, 
 
 And dismal saint biographies, 
 
 The spring is in the cistern drowned, 
 
 And spigot tongues the eaves expound. 
 
 Receptacles that can not think ; 
 
130 . Experience sole source of Wisdom. 
 
 So bigots' brains, like cisterns, stink, 
 Facts bring conviction ; argument 
 May silence but it can't content, 
 Logic may prove that fire will burn, 
 But from the grate no child will turn ; 
 Forbid him touch in vain you chide, 
 Until the experiment is tried : 
 The warnings of the boding sire 
 Can not his son with fear inspire. 
 For Nature's reason owns no prince, 
 Authority can not convince. 
 Experience is the only school 
 For Reason. Solomon 's a fool, 
 For saying that his wisdom 's naught, 
 Who must be by experience taught. 
 Awed by a name, Man may believe 
 What understanding can't conceive, 
 But mind decays, its food refused, 
 And Reason dies by Faith abased. 
 
 Man's senses are the avenues 
 
 A sane soul travels. Reason knows 
 
 No light but science for a guide, 
 
 To steer him thro' life's troubled tide. 
 
 Who loses that has stripped his bark 
 
 Of canvas, and a helpless ark, 
 
 Like lonely Noah's, sealed from light, 
 
 Floats, in an ever darkening night 
 
 O'er progress debris-washing flood, 
 
 With thaumaturgic Gods bestrewed. 
 
 'Tis by dead-reckoning the ship 
 
 Computes her .place, and ends her trip. 
 
Inward Light Insanity. 131 
 
 By compass taught, the vagrant sail 
 
 Still homeward heads, despite the gale. 
 
 No " Inward Light" has God bestowed 
 
 Eclipsing Reason, to enshroud 
 
 Life's sea with vapors, and compel 
 
 The helm abjure the binnacle. 
 
 Such lights 's evolved of mind's decay, 
 
 As phosphor lends a gloomy ray, 
 
 When slowly burned on Nature's hearth, 
 
 Dead vegetation blends with Earth. 
 
 No room for adjuncts, Nature grants, 
 
 They but hallucinate the sense, 
 
 Dethroning Reason in the brain, 
 
 Man 's idiotic or insane. 
 
 Or sits, a King, with skulls for throne, 
 
 A knout his sceptre, straws his crown ; 
 
 Or cow'ring crawls, with lolling tongue, 
 
 And dribbling lips, to meet the thong. 
 
 Light, thro' Faith 's smoking frankincense, 
 
 Of things unseen has evidence ; 
 
 Belief in visions, frenzied mind, 
 
 Alone, can in thought's vacuum find. 
 
 Men crazed by sin, reformed, amaze 
 
 The gods, held by another craze ; 
 
 So Dipsomania is cured, 
 
 By Theomania endured, 
 
 New dissipation takes the place 
 
 Of th' old, by Fashion, made disgrace, 
 
 And any vice by Faith subdued, 
 
 Leaves man upon his knees, at feud 
 
 With natural eyesight, by God given, 
 
 To see, not grope, the road to Heaven. _. 
 
132 Moody 's "Specific." 
 
 Faults, we have courage to confess, 
 We 're always able to redress ; 
 Sincerity repairs the shame 
 They have inflicted on our fame ; 
 But men confessing small faults, state, 
 In substance, that they have no great. 
 So scoundrels manage to conceal 
 Their crimes, who blemishes reveal. 
 
 How is it that Faith's converts show 
 So little to confess ? You '11 know 
 Next year, when loud profession wins 
 More scope for undetected sins. 
 When the dog's vomit in his pew 
 Stinks through reporter's interview, 
 Until it sickens the profane, 
 While sniffing brothers mop the stain. 
 
 Ah ! Strove we, half as hard, to win 
 Perfection as to hide our sin, 
 And seem it, personating lies, 
 Our real standing to disguise, 
 We might our proper selves appear, 
 And live without detection's fear. 
 But Life is endless masquerade, 
 No soul in its own garments clad ; 
 Disguised to others, we, at last, 
 Have from self-recognition passed. 
 And superstition builds his throne 
 Where Man is, to himself, unknown. 
 Man has reached Wisdom's limit, when 
 He knows himself, he knows all men. 
 
Reasoning " a posteriori" 183 
 
 Since Aristotle theorized, 
 
 And Nature's open book misprized, 
 
 Since rays supernal chased his mist, 
 
 And Saul beheld a cloud-built Christ, 
 
 Since errant dead mens' trooping feet 
 
 Tramped aimless thro' scared Zion's street, 
 
 Since gibbering men pied consonants, 
 
 In pentecostal dissonance, 
 
 And unknown tongues gave language shape, 
 
 Unfit for thoughts of chattering ape, 
 
 The "child of Faith" feels something hum 
 
 In his brain-addled cranium, 
 
 Calls it "New Birth" each sense-nerve crossed 
 
 And palsied by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Discards his vision, for insane 
 
 Imagination paints on brain 
 
 More glowing colors than are seen 
 
 In Nature's russet, blue, and green, 
 
 And can not rest till he compels 
 
 All men to use his spectacles, 
 
 And claims God gave them him, to make 
 
 Man know his retina's mistake ; 
 
 So, goggle-blinded, can not see 
 
 Tho' Nature points his Deity, 
 
 But upward rolls his hazy eyes 
 
 To supplicate the empty skies. 
 
 That Man was meant to sit, is plain ; 
 Buttocks, like knees would else be lean. 
 But Nature, with a pedigree 
 Of Saints can't breed a cushioned knee ; 
 Knees would be padded were th' intent 
 
134 Prayer inconsequent. 
 
 Of nature, that they should be bent, 
 
 That genuflection 's held in scorn. 
 
 She proves, protecting them with horn, 
 
 And progress grows irrational, 
 
 If Man 's a praying animal. 
 
 Brute eyes look upward. Nature plans 
 
 His sight for different use in Man's ; 
 
 His seek a level ; Nature's lore 
 
 Ne'er taught a human eye to adore. 
 
 Man is a dog, who looks above 
 
 To find an object for his love ; 
 
 Who fawns for pats, and refuse meats, 
 
 In gates of pearl, and golden streets, 
 
 Valhalla's mead, or fat houris 
 
 Waiting for Faith in Paradise. 
 
 Or drops his wagging tail to slink 
 
 As whip-cracks hearing Hell's coals clink. 
 
 Love scarce the glowing sun can reach 
 
 Tho' framed in prayer with deftest speech, 
 
 Yet his down-pouring beams are hot 
 
 With Nature's love, by God begot, 
 
 Life from above, to Earth descends, 
 
 As gentle shower with sunshine blends, 
 
 But pestilence in mist exhales 
 
 And death floats on its steaming gales. 
 
 So prayer with plague is pestilent, 
 
 Floating toward the firmament. 
 
 Love's source, inimitably far 
 
 Beyond the sun, above the star, 
 
 From its circumferent center whirls 
 
 In endless waltz, the panting worlds. 
 
 He who would strive such height to attain, 
 
G-od is Love. 135 
 
 Must be, or idiot or insane. 
 
 They're idiots, whose praise would swell 
 
 The glories of the Ineffable. 
 
 Who, but th' insane would kneel to move 
 
 Love Infinite, to greater love, 
 
 Love given such God is spent in air, 
 
 Is wasted force, blown off in prayer. 
 
 Love is 'twixt equals,- Pity blends, 
 
 And all below, Love comprehends, 
 
 In Man, the Omnipresent 's near! 
 
 In Man, he's known, lo ! God is here ! 
 
 From every human heart his call 
 
 To every ear is musical, 
 
 As He, for incense begs, and wins 
 
 His perfume from forgiven sins. 
 
 Forgiven by Man, whose Love condones 
 
 The wrong that penitence atones, 
 
 For Nature's God can not forgive, 
 
 No life can break his law and live. 
 
 Until his brother, Man, has loved, 
 
 God's being must remain unproved. 
 
 Such love evolved is consequent 
 
 Unloving Nature never meant. 
 
 But God with higher attributes 
 
 Than he displays in savage brutes, 
 
 In waving trees of whose branched shade 
 
 The puny undergrowth 's afraid. 
 
 In waves and rocks which can not cease 
 
 Contention till a void brings peace. 
 
 Burns in the heart when pity's wine 
 
 Steams fragrant from its glowing shrine ; 
 
 Jove's eagle is Cytheria's dove, 
 
 And Reason knows that God is Love. 
 
136 St. Theresa. 
 
 Sir Reverence is bastard born 
 Of love and fear ; O ! Brothers scorn 
 The bye-blow : where he reign usurps, 
 Instinct and sense alike he warps. 
 What tropes can sanity employ 
 Describing Faith; when its alloy 
 Dulls Reason's gold, and 'wildered sense 
 Is smothered in sir-reverence. 
 
 See, grinning Bishops now parade 
 Their sensitive and sickly maid, 
 Whose flesh unwholesome and insane, 
 From Faith's hysteric, visioned brain, 
 Can reproduce the bleeding palm 
 Of Christ the crucified, and cram 
 With Stigmata, their waning purse, 
 While pilgrims wide the tale rehearse, 
 How menstruating hands display 
 The agonies of Calvary. 
 
 So, too, the Moslem Saint can boast 
 His body, vital with the ghost 
 Of hot Mohammed, when it bears 
 All Tayiff's wounds and Abod's scars, 
 That dancing Dervishes may feel 
 In wilder whirl their prophet's zeal 
 And gain " backsheesh " till at their death, 
 Houris reward their sweating faith. 
 
 So Presbyterian ardor warms, 
 When u Geazus " printed on the arms 
 Of Irish milkmaids, is the mark 
 
Belfast Miracle, Oct., 1858. 137 
 
 Shows wandering soul, has found her ark ; 
 Where safe from sin, secure she rides, 
 Nor feels the force of passion's tides, 
 Whose tumbling seas to ripples shrink, 
 While " blueing " furnishes the ink, 
 Tattooing her till saints confess all, 
 She's " born again," a " chosen vessel." 
 And hob-nailed peasants, shillings spend, 
 To see the wonder, while they bend 
 In reverent awe, to hear his prayers 
 Who with the show, gate-money shares. 
 Till closer contact conquers "grace," 
 And "fleshly lust" usurps her place. 
 
 Thus Creeds are spread by miracle, 
 
 Where Faith can bleed, but can not spell : 
 
 And like the mistress of a priest 
 
 From purgatorial fear released, 
 
 She sins, and prays, and sins by turns, 
 
 Prays when she's cold, sins when she burns ; 
 
 And Gold rewards the " Pious Fraud," 
 
 While Reason jeers her shriveled God. 
 
 For when to Christian is convert 
 
 A juggler, passably expert, 
 
 As in their chant, the rustle 's lost, 
 
 Of spirit-rappers' whisp'ring ghost, 
 
 His tricks seem real, to the throng, 
 
 With ears confused by Zion's song, 
 
 So surpliced knavery thrives on tax 
 
 Faith levies, peddling dismal tracts, 
 
 And Fortune is his sure reward, 
 
 Whose God, by miracle 's adored. 
 
 10 
 
138 The bigot a persecutor. 
 
 No race on Man such ills have wrought, 
 As they who worship mummied thought ; 
 Who from the bigot's musty tome, 
 The dogmas of dead Faiths exhume, 
 And scatter their aborted stench 
 The life of Reason's air to quench. 
 
 So St. Augustine lights the torch 
 Whose dampened flames Servetus scorch ; 
 And Calvin's ghost writes the decree, 
 Expelling Swing for heresy. 
 Now Thomas' legs might comprehend 
 How Scottish boots a creed can mend, 
 If Bishop Bishop what's his name ? 
 Could, as he would, attain Laud's fame, 
 And Zeno's school fright from the porch 
 That girds his mediaeval church. 
 Lake park might smell Swing on his pyre, 
 If Patton's will had Calvin's power. 
 
 Youth, nauseate with creed and priest, 
 Is manhood's ranting Atheist, 
 God, demon visaged, creed defiled, 
 A bestial spectre, scares the child 
 From shady dells, and rippling rills, 
 Where nature's happy larynx trills, 
 Perpetual rapture-lilting praise, 
 Thro' her sweet sunny Sabbath days ; 
 And stuns his aching, shuddering sense, 
 In darkened room with discord dense, 
 Chorded by tuning-forks of Hell, 
 Till rage his prison breaks ; then yell 
 
The Atheist begot by the bigot. 139 
 
 Of joy, acraze with wrathful glee, 
 Proves he's escaped Creed's Nursery. 
 Escaped, alas ! with drum-crushed ears, 
 Deaf to the music of the spheres, 
 Surd ! Nature's anthem he'll deny, 
 And spend a life to prove a lie. 
 
 So Ingersoll must peddle sneers 
 At him who Adam's God reveres. 
 Must shameless deity deride, 
 Exhibiting a bare backside, 
 From which a milder radiance flowed 
 Than blasted, from the front of God, 
 Who wrestled Jacob at Peniel, 
 And only threw him by " a foul ;" 
 Who heeding Moses, changed his mind, 
 And on a calf with Abraham dined ; 
 Then vanished from scared Sarai's eyes, 
 With a full stomach, to the skies ; 
 Who loved, not wisely, Joseph's spouse, 
 And decked with horns the joiner's brows, 
 Which, hanging from each pulpit, shed 
 Faith's lustre on the marvelous creed. 
 
 While howling Brahmins mourn the days 
 Of purer church Auto-da-Fes, 
 And San-benitos, whose chained gang 
 Fledfco the fire, from Faith's harangue. 
 That saving flames each nose might fill 
 With reek of sizzling Ingersoll. 
 And scare to pastures orthodox, 
 His giggling and bewildered flocks. 
 
140 ! Atheism barren. 
 
 From his blind alley placards stare, 
 "No exit here! No thoroughfare ! " 
 For him the Universe is void. 
 Matter alone, by matter buoyed, 
 Exists. In all the immense of space 
 'Twixt sun and sun he sees no trace 
 Of any life, save that close bound 
 By force of gravity to ground, 
 Tho' every inch of that is crammed 
 With sentience, all without is shamed 
 By emptiness that 's absolute, 
 And Matter is the lonesome fruit 
 Of thought-ungrasped Infinity, 
 Tho' every apple proves a tree. 
 
 The Atheist's prayer is to be cloyed. 
 
 His life is waste when unenjoyed, 
 
 As other brutes; no scope beyond 
 
 This little, fretful, jarring round. 
 
 If vice assure a happier day, 
 
 Why homage to grim virtue pay ; 
 
 Brain only finds the stomach food ; 
 
 Digestion is Man's highest good ; 
 
 Work, like a horse, for appetite 
 
 In which a monkey finds delight, 
 
 Love, eat, drink, sleep, 'tis all of life ! 
 
 Why should man mar his days with strife, 
 
 To better others, if his gain 
 
 Increases by their added pain? 
 
 They're fools who dream Love's law. To strong 
 
 The empires of the world belong ; 
 
 Nature awards to claws, success, 
 
Scylla and Charybdis. 141 
 
 And hoofs are food for craftiness. 
 Why feel remorse, or shame, or dread 
 Of wrong, who when you die are dead. 
 
 When Charles, the adulterer, rolled in dust 
 
 The throne of England, sun-lit lust 
 
 Of strumpet raptures made display 
 
 To poets rhythmic roundelay. 
 
 Anteros daubed the wings of Love, 
 
 Priapus spued in each alcove, 
 
 Maidens were bred for paramours 
 
 And virgins learned the arts of whores. 
 
 The Atheist was the fashion then, 
 
 Hobbes, wisest of the sons of men, 
 
 Taught courtiers his dismal creed, 
 
 And virtue vanished from the bed. 
 
 So Atheism breeds despair, 
 
 Of human lot, nor grants an heir 
 
 To Progress as Man shrinks to beast 
 
 Gorged with his Barmecidal feast. 
 
 'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis, steer 
 Man may, but as he does, must fear. 
 'Twixt rocks and whirlpool he can glide, 
 In safety, but on Reason's tide. 
 
 Each coarse re viler and reviled 
 
 Has but defended, or assailed, 
 
 A goblin, man-made, in the dark 
 
 Of Time, when Reason was a spark, 
 
 And all was miracle, because 
 
 Man had no glimpse of Nature's laws. 
 
142 There is a God ! 
 
 They see not that the Universe 
 Proves God, in Love evolved of Force, 
 That far beyond the highest plane 
 Imagination can attain, 
 The Unthinkable 's revealed by Laws, 
 Effect still generating cause. 
 
 There is a God ! The valley's grass, 
 
 The cedars in the mountain pass, 
 
 The yellowing waves of rustling grain, 
 
 All own and bless his loving reign. 
 
 The insect sporting in his beams, 
 
 The elephant, who at the gleams 
 
 Of dawn, salutes the orb of day, 
 
 Alike attest and own his sway. 
 
 The songs of birds to him are prayer ; 
 
 The thunder cleansing poisoned air ; 
 
 The currents which forever glide 
 
 Thro' ocean, and its breathing tide, 
 
 Alike an Infinite proclaim, 
 
 As raving Force in Love grows tame ; 
 
 And men alone who can not rise 
 
 Thro' warring clouds, to peaceful skies, 
 
 And from that height, see furious strife, 
 
 But wider cast the seeds of Life, 
 
 With hearts by intellects crushed, have said 
 
 There is no Love ! There is no God ! 
 
 Shall creeping men, who claim intent, 
 Deny it to the Firmament ? 
 The illimitable, shoreless stream, 
 On which the Universes swim, 
 
The stars deride the Atheist. 143 
 
 As discs in circulating blood, 
 Is there no sentience in its flood ? 
 The body of the Infinite, 
 Has that no will-nerves to transmit 
 From Motion's origin, command, 
 As brain controls obedient hand ? 
 
 Until for Space men limits find, 
 Through it must reign controlling mind. 
 If space has limit, every world 
 Would be toward its centre hurled. 
 Indrawn by gravity its course, 
 Were no antagonistic force. 
 But force, centrifugal, denies 
 A bound, as gravity it vies ; 
 And motion proves that infinite soul 
 O'er infinite matter wields control, 
 Law-giver is, where laws exist : 
 The stars deride the Atheist. 
 
 Yea ! Love alone is Sovereign ! 
 The radiations of his throne 
 Fecundate, vitalize, control, 
 Gross matter, and etherial soul. 
 Earth gasps with bliss in his embrace ; 
 Toward him the stars, untiring race, 
 Unjostling, each, his law-marked course, 
 Speeds, guided by his brethrens' force. 
 Attraction is the love of suns, 
 Its sway obedient matter owns, 
 And love 's the attraction that incites 
 The earth-born soul to heavenward flights, 
 
144 The Justice of the future. 
 
 The world's work 's done by volunteers, 
 Whose wages are abuse and sneers, 
 They trample fear beneath their feet, 
 And half-way, roar of Acheron meet, 
 Defending rights of those who toss 
 Dice-boxes 'neath the moaning cross, 
 And laugh, or curse, as lot grants claim 
 To coats, scourge-clotted, torn from shame 
 Above them hanging, mocked and nude, 
 Dying, in crowded solitude. 
 
 Tell me, O Man, is Instinct waste 
 That wages hopeless war with caste, 
 Yet gasping fights, and fiercest blows, 
 While agonizing, strikes your foes ? 
 " They know not what they do ! Forgive ! 
 I die, O ! Father. Love must live ! " 
 If Nature teaches, they who earn 
 Wealth should enjoy, can Justice spurn 
 Their right, who plant love's seed to eat 
 Somewhere, its mellow, luscious fruit, 
 Or is such love, aborted birth 
 Unripe for Heaven, unfit for Earth ? 
 
 : . 
 
 Gods ! if the Infinite should want 
 Such habitation, Space grows scant, 
 Its boundless stretches must be filled, 
 Else Justice would have room, and build. 
 
 When atheist mocks and bigot raves, 
 License corrupts, or creed enslaves.^ 
 Such quarrel is not Man's. They, each, 
 
The Levite claims the " 'hind- quarter, 145 
 
 The brutal creed of Mammon teach : 
 
 Though progress gains when Man 's released, 
 
 Even by the atheist, from the priest. 
 
 For priests are banded to support, 
 
 The Usurer, Conquerer, and Court, 
 
 And trample Reason in his shell, 
 
 While selfish atheists rebel 
 
 At domination, which denies, 
 
 Man's right to eat his sacrifice. 
 
 Each weary step advance has gained, 
 In terror won, by tears is stained, 
 And fettered Reason's tongue or pen, 
 Moved but to clank the bigot's chain. 
 The oubliette, beneath his sway, 
 Or stake, or gibbet, claim as prey 
 Man-aiding Science as she strives, 
 Instinctively, for nobler lives. 
 The crimsoned Earth thro' aether swings, 
 Her path marked by the blood she flings, 
 When priestcraft aids what tyrants plan, 
 And love of God is hate of man. 
 
 But for abuses Creed exists. 
 
 Better mankind were Atheists, 
 
 Than thrice a year with off 'rings plod, 
 
 Foot-sore, the thronged and dusty road, 
 
 To the fat Levite, waiting where, 
 
 The Sacrifice, with God he'll share. 
 
 What recks he what the people ea,t, 
 
 If God gets smoke, and he gets meat. , 
 
 Better if such God is, abjure 
 
146 Faith the same in Dahomey and Christendom. 
 
 His reign who delegates his power 
 
 To human owls, that shun the light, 
 
 And seize their prey in Man's twilight ; 
 
 Who, aping look of wisdom, hoot 
 
 From shadows, in their fierce pursuit 
 
 Of plunder, with funebral tones, 
 
 Dread horrors through the hearts of clowns. 
 
 Did Man not live in abject fear, 
 
 Stalled Heaven would have few plaints to hear, 
 
 For did he not a future dread, 
 
 His innate force would limit greed. 
 
 Men who their fetish hold in awe 
 
 Must grovel under Mammon's law ; 
 
 For under Mumbo Jumbo, brain 
 
 By sufferance lives, and stomachs reign. 
 
 As in Dahomey, human meat 
 Is haled to shambles, from the street ; 
 See the cowed victim, bending low, 
 In silent stupor wait death's blow ; 
 Faith teaching that his journey lies 
 Thro' the intestines to the skies. 
 There priest for king prepares the food 
 Which both digest, and find it good, 
 While clanging cymbals notify 
 The sniffing, waiting Deity. 
 Our canting anthropophagist 
 Dresses his man for Mammon's feast ; 
 So basting, Faith-bedeviled serf, 
 With bigotry's thick-crusting scurf, 
 That trussed and bound he quiet lies, 
 
France rescued by the Atheist. 147 
 
 A cheerful, willing sacrifice, 
 
 No thought of struggle crossing mind 
 
 To meet " the will of God "resigned. 
 
 From atheist France all laws derive 
 By which to-day her people thrive. 
 For twenty millions share the sward 
 By atheists torn from priest and lord ; 
 All peasant patriots, they band 
 For "Za Patrie," "our native land." 
 Frenchmen have wedded France ; no force 
 Land from her lovers can divorce. 
 No castle's battlements appall 
 The landlord's victim, church's thrall ; 
 And happy homesteads now replace 
 The huts of a misgoverned race. 
 No cold "our country" can express 
 His hot heart's gloating tenderness, 
 For life, love-rooted to her soil, 
 Fragrant with brimming wine and oil. 
 'Twill do Americans who " squat," 
 Cast household goods on any lot, 
 Until its barren waste declares, 
 Land, to be fertile, must have heirs. 
 'Twill do for Englishmen, accursed 
 By Land Monopoly, the worst 
 Earth 's seen since slavery brought doom 
 On alms-fed, landlord-strangled Rome. 
 But the French paysanne^s burning drouth 
 For land, tears from her infant's mouth 
 Her brimmed reluctant teat, to stab 
 Her bosom with a stranger's babe. 
 
148 The sword of Justice double edged. 
 
 And when the untimely weanling pules, 
 The father with his child condoles, 
 " Son ! thou may'st die, but understand 
 That if thou livest, thou'lt have land ! " 
 
 France, robbed to bake the Eucharist, 
 
 Was rescued by the Atheist ; 
 
 For, ere the Grand Convention broke 
 
 By his strong hands, her double yoke, * 
 
 Her toiling men, for Luxury's needs, 
 
 T$y taxes starved, were fed on creeds. 
 
 There Nobles, at the royal feet 
 
 Laid price appraised of judge's seat, 
 
 And took, as lawful gain, the fee 
 
 That paid for the unjust decree ; 
 
 Thus one, for impotence divorced, 
 
 For gross seduction was amerced, 
 
 And double edge of justice felt ; 
 
 Declared both ravisher, and gelt. 
 
 His genitals declared effete, 
 
 Dower was returned his craving mate. 
 
 While the salacious dog repents 
 
 His bastard's annual expense. 
 
 There he who chanced upon the street 
 
 Poor Capuchins in file to meet, 
 
 Whose leader, on paunch-fed by alms, 
 
 Sustained the Host, while all droned psalms, 
 
 And, at their wafer-god amused, 
 
 His wicked hat, to doff, refused ; 
 
 Had cause his unbelief to mourn, 
 
 When from his mouth his tongue was torn ; 
 
State of wealth producers governed ly tax-payers. 149 
 
 When, stretched upon the creaking rack, 
 He felt his perverse sinews crack, 
 And saw, in each dissevered wrist, 
 Th' atonement Law awarded priest ; 
 Not paid, till, from green fagots heaped 
 Around his stake, the dull flames crept, 
 That in slow fire burnt out his sin, 
 Who ridiculed a Capuchin. 
 
 J?here Judges sentenced, every year, 
 Five hundred wretches to the oar, 
 Where, naked, chained to galley bench, 
 They ate, drank, slept, and died in stench, 
 Because the salt that Nature craves, 
 They smuggled to their fellow slaves. 
 And power the curst gabelle assessed 
 To squander it on lord and priest. 
 
 These wits found in the shiv'ring brutes, 
 'Round Paris grubbing fields for roots, 
 Such semblance to the human shape, 
 As Darwin now might find in ape ; 
 Or such as angry Kearney sees 
 In leper-bred, ill-fed Chinese ; 
 Or such as shocks a Democrat, 
 When first he sees a negro vote ; 
 Such form as in their eyes you take, 
 When Joe Medill and Story quake, 
 Fearing their clients greenbacks get, 
 For greenbacks which create your debt ; 
 And argued learnedly as they, 
 Of natural supremacy, 
 Over the ragged beasts, of those, 
 
150 Seignorial Rights. 
 
 Who boasted fat, and wore good clothes, 
 Deep based and framed in Nature's facts, 
 And manifested by the tax 
 The masters paid, each centime earned, 
 And forced by Law from those they spurned. 
 
 There, when the savage, wintry chase, 
 
 Its quarry found in houseless waste, 
 
 The chilly noble knew defence * 
 
 Against the cold; kind Providence, 
 
 Did by Seignorial Right direct 
 
 The feeble Should the strong protect ; 
 
 He slew a villein, and the heat, 
 
 Of the slashed entrails warmed his feet ; 
 
 His brother serfs looked on, content, 
 
 With their place in God's government, 
 
 Well taught to know that human clay 
 
 Th' Almighty potter must obey ; 
 
 That Providence assigns each lot, 
 
 As sugar bowl, or chamber pot ; 
 
 If so, could not his wisdom plan, 
 
 A foot-stove, or a warming-pan. 
 
 When Luther's match had touched the train 
 Thought scattered on Man's waking brain, 
 The Church, whose creed controlled the world, 
 From her wide-swaying throne was hurled, 
 Nor were th' explosive forces spent, 
 Till Rome lost half the continent. 
 Thro' Germany, each peasant home, 
 Laughed at the bellowing Bulls of Rome; 
 The Switzer, in his eyrie, heard, 
 
The Moral of a Fable. 151 
 
 Her thunders roll below, unstirred ; 
 England, whose creed was ever Gold, 
 Careless, indifferent, heard her scold, 
 And Bull for Bull bluff Harry sped, 
 With her tiara on his head. 
 
 Man gained by changing, for u the Book," 
 
 Rome's sceptre, welded to a crook, 
 
 As frogs, when great King Stork has died, 
 
 His loss by great King Log supplied ; 
 
 At first, they venerate the thing, 
 
 Such turmoil spreading thrown their spring, 
 
 Then wiser grow, and mock their king. 
 
 Had France with popes been discontent, 
 
 Her peasants would be protestant ; 
 
 But there the priest with noble joined, 
 
 And fraud with force had crushed his mind. 
 
 The Church had so debased the Celt, 
 
 No sound he heard, no shock he felt ; 
 
 Low thro' her glooms her vassals crept, 
 
 High o'er his head, thought's tempest swept, 
 
 And never changed the stagnant air 
 
 In the dark crypts, whence his dull stare, 
 
 In horror saw the lightnings flash 
 
 O'er Europe's firmament, to crash, 
 
 The swarming towers, where o'er him stank, 
 
 The fat and filthy tonsured monk. 
 
 Vengeance but waits ! A later time, 
 In blood and tears, avenged her crime. 
 Th' infernal force of Creed was spent, 
 
152 The Resurrection of France. 
 
 In its despite, Thought found a vent ; 
 
 And his long prisoned gases rushed, 
 
 With one grand throe, thro' Creed's thick crust. 
 
 Light on his darkness broke ; Man saw, 
 
 And knew his jailer in the Law. 
 
 When naked Labor felt his shame, 
 
 The hour of his deliverance came. 
 
 Then hear him shriek : " There is no God ! " 
 
 Taught but to know that purpled fraud, 
 
 By whose aid fat-paunched bishops stole, 
 
 The poor man's bread and starved his soul. 
 
 H 
 
 Mass-mumbling priest then met the fate, 
 He earned, as jackal for " the great." 
 For Justice, Mammon's martyrs bled, 
 The greedy guillotine they fed, 
 And every stroke that lopped a head, 
 But thinned a breed for plunder bred. 
 
 Freed from the incubi that, squat 
 Upon her breast, long ages sat, 
 France sprang to life ; the feudal corse, 
 Thrilled with reviving nature's force, 
 And burst the cerements which wrapped 
 The limbs that now to Freedom leaped. 
 On Human Rights she based her laws ; 
 And tho' to reinstate their cause, 
 Bourbon and priest combine their skill, 
 They dare not thwart a people's will. 
 No cunning can its rule restore, 
 And Creed will reign in France no more ; 
 For Man, once free, can but despise 
 
Siamese Twins. 153 
 
 The obscene, revolting, gem-decked lies, 
 Which hang upon each gaping shrine, 
 As grapes upon a fruitful vine, 
 And feed brute faith, by relics shown 
 As Christ's foreskin, or Peter's bone. 
 
 In France, babes laugh when friars tell 
 The doleful agonies of Hell. 
 The land, of all lands Orthodox, 
 Now more than all, Religion mocks. 
 
 Aye ! Better far no God, than these 
 Who force the race upon its knees 
 Like camels, while they burdens bind, 
 Never by God, for Man, designed. 
 Who claim commission from the skies 
 To govern Man, must blind his eyes : 
 Must with the senseless power they wield, 
 Shame Honor, and Corruption shield : 
 Must rule to ruin, reign to blast, 
 And on the present force the past ; 
 Still shudd'ring as the gates of dawn 
 Herald Love's fast approaching morn. 
 
 For Creed and Power are sworn allies. 
 No crow pecks out another's eyes. 
 Like Eng and Chang, twins Siamese, 
 They're coupled in all villainies. 
 They bed together ; while one gasps 
 In bestial bliss, the other clasps 
 The victim's arms, and fends escape 
 From loathsome, phagedenic rape, 
 ii 
 
Zion 'built with the debris of Olympus. 
 
 For every weight that Man has crushed, 
 
 The Church has been apologist. 
 
 Her outworn creeds, like bands of iron 
 
 To check his growth his thoughts environ. 
 
 She, in traditions of the Jews, 
 
 Finds warrant for each vile abuse ; 
 
 The small dead God of Palestine, 
 
 She swings before Man's eyes, to screen 
 
 All infamies that fill her purse, 
 
 And knows no shame, feels no remorse. 
 
 Astonished Paganism paled, 
 
 When by the blood-stained cross assailed ; 
 
 The flow'ry garlands that she wove 
 
 To hang in chaste Diana's grove, 
 
 The myrtle wreaths, with roses twined, 
 
 For Father Jupiter designed, 
 
 Dropped from her nerveless, frightened hand, 
 
 As its grim Saint shook sword and brand 
 
 Before her Nature-loving eyes, 
 
 And claimed her temples as his prize. 
 
 He robbed her ^Esculapius, 
 Apollo, Chrisna, Adonais, 
 Bacchus, Prometheus, Mercury, 
 And blent them in his deity. 
 Then stole the cross from Serapis, 
 Stole lessons from Pythagoras, 
 Baptism from the Essenes, 
 Their patient neophyte's surplice, 
 Apollo's gold baptismal font, 
 To use Nundina's sprinkler on't, 
 
Conglomerate strata of dead Faiths. 155 
 
 Mystic regeneration stole, 
 
 And poured from out the Delphian bowl, 
 
 Upon a figurative womb, 
 
 The " blood of sprinkling's " filthy spume ; 
 
 So Tauribolian Christ was slain, 
 
 So Christian convert 's " born again." 
 
 From Eleusinian mysteries rent 
 
 Their supper, called it "Sacrament," 
 
 Took Augur's staff, and Janus' keys, 
 
 Took Venus' pigeons, Aaron's grease, 
 
 Took Nature's worship of the Sun, 
 
 And gave it to his " Holy One ; " 
 
 Fixt John the Baptist's natal day 
 
 When Sol began to lose his sway, 
 
 And set the Anointed's wondrous birth 
 
 When he returns to bless an earth^ 
 
 Halved by a creed, whose changing year 
 
 But fits the northern hemisphere. 
 
 Stole dreams of empire-hoping Jews, 
 
 And called their drivel, "prophecies," 
 
 Mortared the dismal farrago. 
 
 With second-death, and endless woe ; 
 
 On Paganism forced his scheme, 
 
 Till Faith o'er Intellect reigned, supreme. 
 
 Since, so the Church her place assured, 
 
 Man's reasoning power has but endured ; 
 
 Advance was scarcely possible, 
 
 Against Greed reinforced by Hell. 
 
 Thro' every air her jingling chime 
 Has rung her raptures over crime, 
 And wickedness that has no word 
 
156 The "Scarlet Woman:' 
 
 In Nature's tongue, from her has heard 
 Its chanted praise, in blasphemies 
 Attuned to rhythmic melodies. 
 Of all earth's curses, still the worst 
 From her corrupted womb has burst ; 
 All horrors, infamies, and guilt, 
 The strumpet fondles 'neath the quilt 
 Of brawling prayers, which overspread 
 Her Mammon-pressed adulterous bed ; 
 For Faith exists but as she wars 
 With Reason, and his vict'ries mars. 
 
 See, from her racks, the wretches crawl 
 To her slow stake, and roasted fall 
 Into eternal woe, to slake 
 Her thirst for power : the dread mistake 
 The infernal deity may shrive, 
 Who would not suffer witch to live ; 
 But sent his sin-destroying priest 
 Throughout the hamlets, with a list 
 Of bed-rid, toothless, mumbling age, 
 That lived in hot concubinage 
 With the arch fiend, whose lack of taste 
 Proves him untonsured, if unchaste, 
 With thumbscrews oiled, for witnesses 
 To prove their arctic wantonness. 
 
 The dazed brains that, Walpurgis night, 
 On broomsticks took their cloud -whirled flight 
 To homage Satan, should have known 
 They could have bowed before his throne, 
 On any pleasant Sabbath day, 
 
Devil Worship. 157 
 
 When frightened children fear to play, 
 Tho' Nature beckon to the gloom 
 Within their shutter-darkened room, 
 And tho' she spreads illumined book 
 Before swelled eyes, that dare not look, 
 To some damned catechism chained, 
 Whose every page with tears is stained. 
 Aye ! could have found an open Hell 
 High-flaming in his narrow cell, 
 Whose scared imagination framed 
 A God that loved him better maimed 
 Of Nature's virile force ashamed 
 Yet feared the knife, and strove his seed 
 To quell by hair-shirt, fast, and bead ; 
 Who sought his balky soul to urge 
 Toward Heaven, with the moaning scourge 
 Whose appetite, by Faith depraved, 
 'For ashes, as a luxury craved ; 
 Whose Heaven-revolting discipline 
 Made sack-cloth grateful to his skin, 
 And, prostrate, on his stony floor 
 In sanious anguish lay, to adore 
 His blear-eyed deity, an elf 
 Dwarf image of his monstrous self, 
 That blinked approval from its shelf. 
 
 When wak'ning Conscience stood in awe 
 Of " property in man " by law, 
 With slavocrats in power allied, 
 Her besom struggled with the tide, 
 Which rolled with Love's resistless force 
 To sweep from earth its coiling curse. 
 
158 Coricubitusfacit Matrimoniam. 
 
 And she, who shudders at their crime, 
 
 Whose feet to violins keep time, 
 
 With raptures gasped in their embrace, 
 
 Who brutalized by law a race. 
 
 Magentius' horrid punishment 
 
 To her was holy sacrament. 
 
 She, too, with living, chained the dead, 
 
 And Bondage with Free Labor wed ; 
 
 Her God invoked to bless the bond, 
 
 Tho' Slavery stank, and Freedom swooned. 
 
 While every canting pulpit sought 
 
 To tighten matrimonial knot, 
 
 Epithalamiums she sang, 
 
 Joy bells in every steeple rang, 
 
 And temple-clouding censers swung, 
 
 While round his neck her foul arms clung, 
 
 Tho' Free Thought, Free Speech, Free Press 
 
 died, 
 Where to the rotting carcass tied. 
 
 Behold the "Child of many prayers " 
 The unnatural alliance rears : 
 Its offspring such as leap to birth 
 When sons of God consort on earth 
 With lustful maids, and rear a brood 
 Of fiendlings, who in Heaven's flood 
 Are drowned as War's remorseless wave 
 Engulfs the master, frees the slave. 
 
 She prattled of the curse of Ham, 
 And quoted texts of Abraham ; 
 Long .on Onesimus she stood, 
 
Mrs. Partington. 159' 
 
 And battled with the rising flood, 
 Against a wild Atlantic's spume 
 Wielded her dust-compelling broom, 
 Indignant that the increasing wave 
 Of Reason floated off the Slave. 
 
 She stood upon Thought's battle-field, 
 
 And with brass pot-lid strove to shield 
 
 Her bigot troops, from hurtling rain 
 
 Of argument aimed at the brain, 
 
 And sped from bows whose strings were tense 
 
 With twanging, tendinous common sense. 
 
 Men who for half a century 
 
 Had droned her doleful litany, 
 
 Yet felt an arrow wound, and bled, 
 
 As pity rankled in their creed, 
 
 She blasted with contempt, and drove 
 
 From ranks all terrified at Love. 
 
 She forced her Christ to justify 
 The infamous, unnatural lie. 
 Resolved that Slavocrats might feed 
 Upon his flesh, and drink his blood, 
 Yet, shielded by that text of Paul's, 
 Drink no damnation to their souls. 
 With sins per se, et a lege 
 Chopped logic with her deity . 
 And all her skill and wit were spent 
 In finding out what " doulos" meant; 
 While Man was deafened with her bray, 
 " Douloi" their masters must obey. 
 
160 Domestic and foreign Missions. 
 
 That the man-stealer's legacy 
 She might to " pious use " apply, 
 She taught Theology for gold, 
 Received as price of maidens sold 
 To speculating brutes, who dealt 
 In " fancy girls," and never felt 
 Shame's tinge upon her sallow cheek, 
 But read her testament in Greek 
 Upon her horny knees, and prayed 
 For the salvation of the maid, 
 Consigned to Hell, to send the news 
 Of resurrection to the Jews ; 
 Then rose, her consignee to rate 
 As lost, and "unregenerate,*' 
 If "trade was dull," and "short return" 
 Was of a soul's pollution born. 
 
 When a long life of legal theft 
 
 Dropped from Earth's gloom, and Hades cleft, 
 
 And deathbed's conscience' heir lost grip 
 
 By will, upon his father's whip, 
 
 She Jesus hear it ! sent the freed 
 
 To Africa, to teach her creed. 
 
 To frighten fetish worshippers, 
 Taught Hell to her interpreters ; 
 And, spectacled, read their reports 
 Of "added souls," in annual courts, 
 Delighted when the boasting scribe 
 Told of a half-converted tribe ; 
 Tho' the deciphered paragraph, 
 Intend each convert's upper half. 
 
The Church loves Man. 161 
 
 As ladies swung their crinoline, 
 
 To show contempt for Union men, 
 
 In New Orleans, when Butler's wit 
 
 Upon Secessia's garments lit, 
 
 And taught her jeering legs to hide 
 
 More gracefully, her angered pride ; 
 
 Now see this withered beldam frown, 
 
 And jerk aside her greasy gown, 
 
 Her senile scorn to indicate, 
 
 When Love with Reason holds debate, 
 
 How force from Greed, for Nature's heir 
 
 How save for Toil his righteous share 
 
 Of wealth from Labor robbed, and spent 
 
 In luxuries ; tho' Nature meant 
 
 In granting it, Man to assure 
 
 Equality, for she no poor 
 
 Nor rich will foster. From her loaf 
 
 Should all men cut, there 's bread enough. 
 
 The Church loves Man! Oh! well! how well 
 
 All lips irrational can tell, 
 
 Whose love is lust ; such love as this 
 
 Can copulate, but never kiss. 
 
 Now from each cross-road hear the squeak 
 
 Of weak-lunged Boanerges, break 
 
 The quiet of the Sabbath eve, 
 
 And of their atheism rave, 
 
 Who hold the Domesday-law unjust, 
 
 As starving love, it fattens lust; 
 
 To petty tyrants parcelling land, 
 
 That built on fences, thrones may stand, 
 
162 Feudal System. 
 
 And for an age perpetuate 
 A system based on Norman hate, 
 And Saxon impotence ; for Gurth, 
 Born thrall of Rufus, tills his earth. 
 Where deeds and patents spoilers yield 
 Law's title to Man's ravished field, 
 Who but the priests of Mammon shriek 
 His curses at the men who seek 
 To shatter to foundation stone 
 The system laws are built upon, 
 Which concentrate all wealth, and force 
 On Labor, wed to land, divorce. 
 
 Who dare, but Mammon's priests to rend 
 Asunder those whom God hath joined ? 
 Aye ! who but they dare prostitute 
 Toil's wife, that she must yield her fruit 
 To incarnated Greed, and doom 
 Her teeming and prolific womb 
 To breed, instead of God-like Man, 
 Deformed, misshapen Caliban, 
 Who from her shamed bed driven forth, 
 Wanders, trespasser on the earth, 
 And till death settles Nature's debt 
 Must crave his fellows' leave to sweat. 
 
 Where e'er she claims to rule mankind, 
 And seeks on earth her realm to find, 
 Religion governs but to curse, 
 As Progress gains she meets reverse ; 
 So Man's advance is measured by 
 The loss of meddling Deity. 
 
Progress rejects all forms of Religion. 163 
 
 O ! Toilers, in Religion know 
 
 Your craftiest and meanest foe. 
 
 As well expect Cholula's priests, 
 
 Fattened on their inhuman feasts, 
 
 Who, 'ere the off 'ring parts with life, 
 
 Beneath the sacrificial knife, 
 
 Ravening, upon the victim dart, 
 
 Tear from his breast his quiv'ring heart, 
 
 And quaff the spurting sacrifice 
 
 To win the favor of the sl^ies, 
 
 Should sicken at the taste of blood, 
 
 And quench the altars of their God, 
 
 As hope for help from those whose gain 
 
 Is won from shriveled, torpid brain, 
 
 Who thro ? the dreary ages bind 
 
 Faith's fetters on distorted mind, 
 
 And on Toil's shoulders, galled and worn, 
 
 Bind burdens grievous to be borne ; 
 
 Nor yield a finger's strength to aid 
 
 Him staggering beneath the load ; 
 
 But mouth their mingled diatribe, 
 
 Of Church's curse, and Mammon's jibe, 
 
 Perdition here, and Hell his lot, 
 
 Who dares attempt to cut the knot, 
 
 With which the Lilliputs have bound 
 
 Their monster Man upon the ground 
 
 He slept on, while they, crafty, wound 
 
 His limbs in laws that aggregate 
 
 The skill of Creed and strength of Hate, 
 
 Lest Labor, lord of land, and free 
 
 From paralyzing usury, 
 
 Should from his Heaven-erected face 
 
164 
 
 The sordid lines of Greed efface, 
 And by his just, and gentle reign, 
 Drive Serf and King from his domain : 
 And smiling skies should greet an earth, 
 Whose laughing harvests banish dearth, 
 While in deserted mines but Gnomes 
 And Kobolds find congenial homes. 
 
 When knaves climb Sinai, God is sure 
 To warrant robbery of the poor. 
 When Moses journeys, Levites feast, 
 And " Brother Aaron " is high priest, 
 The Heavens are wise, they know to choose, 
 The seed of Amram rules the Jews. 
 So always they will answer prayer, 
 When fools believe that God is there. 
 
The Demagogue. 165 
 
 Alas ! Your straggling ranks disclose 
 Even in your midst, a host of foes. 
 Still Judas waits with thin-pressed lip 
 And itching palm, his price to grip. 
 For blatant demagogues and loud 
 Will to the wall, your honest crowd. 
 With brazen lungs will claim the right 
 To bear your standards thro' the fight. 
 
 In every parliament of rats 
 
 Some blatant speaker bells the cats, 
 
 The first to lead the van of flight 
 
 When " miaeou " quavers on the night. 
 
 When Nero reigns, the timid pass 
 
 For wise men with the frightened mass, 
 
 Who hide in cowed apostacy ; 
 
 Tho' wisdom then 's audacity. 
 
 When safety hangs on accident, 
 
 And Man by circumstance is pent ; 
 
 As fumbling fear escape debates, 
 
 A spice of madness extricates. 
 
 If you to their direction yield, 
 
 Your hosts fly scattered from the field, 
 
 Where the ne'er-ending battles rage, 
 
 Labor with Capital must wage. 
 
 For they will seek to compromise 
 
 Your principles to gain allies, 
 
 Whose wav'ring lines but court defeat, 
 
 Nor dare, in phalanx, spurn retreat. 
 
 When, answering their ambitious prayer, 
 You seat them in the curule chair, 
 
166 Tilden. 
 
 They'll pocket bribes, and sell the votes, 
 Hoarse rumbling from their perjured throats, 
 With crammed porte-monnaies flout your school, 
 To echo Thurman, " Wealth must rule!" 
 
 When Didius in the forum stands, 
 
 And with Sulpician contends, 
 
 Purse fights with purse, and auctioned Rome 
 
 Falls prey to him who has, at home, 
 
 The chests, his clawing hand unlocks 
 
 To buy the tissued Ballot-box ; 
 
 Nor needs, with promise of the sack 
 
 Of public treasure, bribe the pack 
 
 Of party hounds, who howling wait, 
 
 Snapping each other at its gate. 
 
 No dogs so fierce as they, will quarrel 
 
 Around the fame-invested " barrel." 
 
 So, venal from his rotten youth, 
 
 A smirk at Faith, and sneer at Truth, 
 
 Burrowing all his knavish prime 
 
 For legal garbage thro' the slime 
 
 Of gold-bought statutes he calls Law, 
 
 In which the wiggling weak, to maw 
 
 Of floundering strength, in shoals are sped, 
 
 As menhaden for sharks are bred. 
 
 This sapless, loveless Eunuch, who 
 
 Wedded to selfishness, ne'er knew 
 
 Sensation of a nerve that felt 
 
 A sympathy beyond his pelt 
 
 Who thro' a prosperous career 
 
 Of seven decades has seen each year 
 
Ambition, the highest bidder. 167 
 
 Surpass the last, as knavish skill 
 Law-wed to profit-breeding quill : 
 Now would in loveless age, aspire 
 The seat of Washington to hire. 
 Hot with ambition makes his claim, 
 And palled with money, trades for fame. 
 
 With creaking joints, and rheumy eyes, 
 See Tilden, blinking at the prize, 
 Then at his " barrel," to estimate 
 How much 'twill shrink, to make him great. 
 While to his ears, in harmony floats 
 The smothered moan of bulldozed votes, 
 (With shot-gun roars, as foul Yazoo, 
 Sick of free thought enjoys a spue.) 
 All cheaply gained, the caucus bought 
 For whose control his purse has fought, 
 As States wholesaled for cash are won, 
 At retail by the lash and gun, 
 Of "glory" sure, if filthy Cork, 
 With tripled vote, can drag New York 
 Across the color-line, where stand 
 In solid ranks, Secession's band. 
 
 So Murder, Rant, and Bribery strive 
 To give you an infirm Khedive, 
 Who, fastened on your back, will guide 
 Your stumbling steps, with roweled hide ; 
 While you, as Sinbad gather nuts 
 For him who represents the guts 
 Which patient labor wastes her skill 
 And idiotic sweat, to fill, 
 
168 The " Color Line:' 
 
 Because the food that they digest, 
 
 Only increases power to feast, 
 
 As principal when interest 
 
 Upon the debt new strength bestows, 
 
 More rav'nous, as it larger grows. 
 
 All cunning, lies and treachery 
 
 Are proof of incapacity ; 
 
 He who was cheated thought he meant 
 
 More cunning than his opponent. 
 
 While you, O ! Toil, your friends behold, 
 Priced in the market-place and sold, 
 For State's rights bellowing, the Thug 
 Thro' all the South, the grave has dug, 
 For strangled Freedom. Will you lack 
 All sympathy, because she's black ? 
 Her cause is yours, your cause is Man's, 
 Right knows nor colors, creeds, nor clans. 
 
 Even when your ardent cohorts throng 
 
 The crumbling battlements of wrong, 
 
 When tear-drenched eyes with gladness shine, 
 
 Arid " Victory ! " rings along the line. 
 
 Still traitor hands your standards lower, 
 
 As fell ambition grasps at power. 
 
 If Toil but tramples on a crown, 
 
 To shiver at a Tribune's frown, 
 
 A harsher master you obey, 
 
 Than those he aided you to slay. 
 
 As Progress with her rattling train 
 Lays her own track o'er hill and plain, 
 
The " Coup d'etat: 1 169 
 
 Thro' mire, and rock, her toilsome course, 
 
 Exacts all skill, and claims all force, 
 
 As the dead weight behind he drags, 
 
 Of Dives' purple, Lazar's rags ; 
 
 Then if you trust a renegade 
 
 To hold her lever, retrograde 
 
 He'll set it, and the crash of wheels, 
 
 And telescoping vans, reveals, 
 
 The wretch who forced the steam you heat, 
 
 To drive destruction on retreat. 
 
 For him no quarter ; let your knife, 
 Keen-whetted, drink his forfeit life. 
 For Justice, Labor ne'er must shrink 
 To see his traitors swing, and stink. 
 
 To the great King, an embassage 
 Th' .Athenians missioned, to engage 
 His influence to gain them peace, 
 And Thebes prevent from ruling Greece. 
 All means are fair to win success, 
 Thought craven-souled Therrnagoras, 
 And worshipped the great monarch, prone 
 As vassal, crawling to the Throne. 
 How Athens raged, as Greeks deride 
 The blow his baseness gave her pride, 
 " Success, so won ! what gift had he 
 To buy a freeman's bended knee ? 
 Lest the proud shades our altars shun, 
 Whose bright blood crimsoned Marathon, 
 To Pluto's realm, vile Slave, .depart ! 
 May Furies rend your milky heart ; 
 
 12 
 
170 Wisdom of Ostracism. 
 
 Our glad air 's poisoned with your breath ; 
 Death ! to the Traitor ! Sudden death ! " 
 
 Just Sentence ! May his doom be told 
 
 Of every cur that licks for gold 
 
 The hand of power, the man, self-made, 
 
 Whose patriotism is his trade. 
 
 O ! Toilers dread, O ! Freemen shun 
 
 Laws which evolve the self-made man, 
 
 Justice and Mercy, Love and Grace, 
 
 Are doomed where he controls his race. 
 
 When Northern hordes assailed her wall, 
 And Rome was tottering to her fall, 
 When Anarchy's wild, seething waves, 
 Broke o'er the weak defence of Slaves, 
 A huge, unwieldy Savage tore 
 His bloody path to seats of power. 
 Selfish and pitiless, his might, 
 'Mid butchered victims mocked at Right ; 
 The shiv'ring Senate, dumb with awe, 
 His edicts registered as law, 
 And his nomadic, purple tent 
 Was source and seat of Government. 
 Death fawned upon him as he strode 
 The trembling Earth, a human God, 
 As Rome with laurels crowned her son 
 Her self-made man, dread Maximin. 
 
 O Toilers of this land, be warned ! 
 
 Ten years' proud Troy Cassandra scorned, 
 
 Then fell, because her Prince before 
 
Traitorous Towers. 171 
 
 Was conquered by the Grecian whore. 
 
 And vanity his Right denied, 
 
 Who claimed from lust his stolen bride. 
 
 In Homer's deathless tale is writ 
 
 The world truth close with Nature knit, 
 
 " No walls a city can protect, 
 
 Whose towers with treason are infect;" 
 
 So Priam's grey, blood-dabbled hair 
 
 Calls down the cent'ries to declare, 
 
 Who wrong defends, its ills must share. 
 
 O ! Brothers, every tower you build 
 Within your walls, a foe will shield. 
 Who herds in them, remote from Man, 
 Must set untiring brains to plan 
 For greater height, and wider sweep, 
 While men beneath, foreshortened creep, 
 And undistinguished emmets throng 
 (Whose nights are short and days are long) 
 The narrowed streets, chilled in their shade, 
 And of their culverins afraid ; 
 Peered down upon by jealous eyes, 
 Policed by guns and watched by spies, 
 Forbid to think, or talk, or vote, 
 Lest they attempt to fill the moat. 
 
 All towers are traitors ; even the wall 
 Defensive, must defiance bawl ; 
 Must bring th' invader to inspect 
 What 'tis their battlements protect. 
 Suspicion, always wrong will meet, 
 Distrust still justifies deceit. 
 
172 Liberty needs no walls. 
 
 Man never built a wall too stout 
 
 To quiver at its victor's shout. 
 
 Walls prove their denizens are base ; 
 
 That power bestrides a coward race ; 
 
 Nature decrees their fall; their seed 
 
 Grows dwarfish, and she spurns the breed. 
 
 But Sparta, for six hundred years, 
 
 Walled by Equality, avers 
 
 She never in her homely street 
 
 Heard the dread tramp of hostile feet ; 
 
 Aye ! more ! She never stranger saw 
 
 But ate black broth and lived her law. 
 
 Man has one ark, around it crowd 
 
 The rich, the arrogant, the proud, 
 
 Eager to clutch, with hands profane, 
 
 God's covenant, and Mammon's bane, 
 
 And each would rule, when all are free, 
 
 But in and thro' Equality. 
 
 Who flout Equality, betray 
 
 Republics, and but wait the day, 
 
 When they can Freedom over-ride, 
 
 Tho' splashed with blood at every stride. 
 
 Unconscious of the greatness born 
 
 Of abnegation, they fear scorn 
 
 For blustering fame,, and Man must fall 
 
 From Nature's plantigrades, and crawl, 
 
 Dog-headed, humbled, pitiful, 
 
 In adulation worshipful, 
 
 Before the jealous eyes that know 
 
 In every man, erect, a foe. 
 
 Else Haman for a gallows schemes, 
 
 When Mordecai infests his dreams. 
 
Th<? Mob's great men the Philosophers' fools. 173 
 
 Imagination farness grants 
 
 Where vision palters with the sense. 
 
 The angle that subtends the eye 
 
 Declares a giant, wide and high, 
 
 Till Reason, measuring distance, aids, 
 
 When to a dwarf the monster fades. 
 
 By distant looking Man 's undone, 
 
 Victim to what he 'd, nearer, shun. 
 
 'Tis their pedestals make men great 
 
 To those beneath, who congregate, 
 
 But from his tub, Diogenes, 
 
 The monarch, as a maggot sees. 
 
 Gas is the force that climbs the skies, 
 
 Men, like balloons, must swell to rise, 
 
 To explode when greatest height they win, 
 
 And grandeur's air for Man 's too thin. 
 
 None ever rise so high as he 
 
 Who floats to power, on anarchy, 
 
 Who knows not whither he is bent, 
 
 Nor why, nor how he made the ascent. 
 
 Was Arnold traitor, when he sold 
 West-Point for British rank and gold ? 
 Whose Patriotism chilled and died, 
 Frozen by greed, and choked by pride, 
 Because Self-love must vindicate 
 Its appetite insatiate, 
 For higher rank, claimed by the sword, 
 Which as a mercenary warred. 
 
 What then Fremont ? who could not serve 
 His country, when thro' every nerve 
 
174 Ambitious Patriots. 
 
 His supersession poured a smart. 
 Thro' self-love, on his jealous heart. 
 Whose petty spleen betrayed to shame 
 The countless votes that cheered his name, 
 He " Aut Caesar, aut iiullus" whined, 
 And seeing Pope bestarred, resigned. 
 
 Resigned! Deserted ! had he worn 
 Instead of shoulder-strap, chevron. 
 Resigned ! Aye ! So Jeff Davis fell. 
 Resigned ! 'twas heard in every yell 
 That cheered a West-point graduate 
 Who swelled the hosts confederate, 
 To rear on human property 
 A charnel house for Liberty ; 
 And, mad for bitter praise, aspired 
 His fame, who Dian's temple fired. 
 They, more than country, loved a slave, 
 He, more than country, loved a Knave, 
 And Paris' jail stands open yet 
 For still-born Patriot ! convict cheat ! 
 Arnold resigned ! But Arnold sold ? 
 Yes ! The Confederates had no gold ! 
 
 When Rome, by desp'rate factions torn 
 
 As Caesar's rage met Pompey's scorn, 
 
 Implored her greatest citizen 
 
 To sacrifice at Concord's Fane, 
 
 The paltry glory of a day, 
 
 And blend in peace their jarring sway. 
 
Cicero. ' 175 
 
 See, careless of the impending war, 
 
 Self-love deny the piteous prayer, 
 
 As Cicero, without her gates, 
 
 Impassive, for his triumph, waits. 
 
 Tho' well he knows her fate is sealed ; 
 
 That Rome will be a battle-field ; 
 
 That once the Rubicon is crossed, 
 
 Freedom and Peace alike are lost. 
 
 And yet this Patriot had enjoyed, 
 
 Until e'en self-love should have cloyed, 
 
 All honors due from gratitude 
 
 To him, who Cataline subdued. 
 
 The greasy mob's applause had sped 
 
 The Senate's laurels to his head. 
 
 With " I saved Rome ! " his calm disdain 
 
 Answered and crushed who dared complain 
 
 That his administration warred 
 
 With justice, and Rome's statutes marred. 
 
 First of her banded Kings he rode 
 
 On topmost wave of Fortune's flood. 
 
 And " pater patrice !" could not climb 
 
 To higher power, but by a crime. 
 
 This man, to enjoy a few hours march 
 Thro' gaping streets 'neath dizened arch, 
 Looked idly on, nor intervened, 
 Tho' war and peace were in his hand. 
 So Vanity has clothed with shame 
 The Triumph that adorns his name. 
 
 Be warned, O Toilers. Who is this? 
 To whom, like Cadi, in Tunis, 
 
176 The "Hero" Politician. 
 
 No present ever came amiss. 
 
 Who made the White-House, rendezvous, 
 
 Where met detective, thief, and Jew ; 
 
 Perhaps a jack-daw, but, God knows, 
 
 Long years th' associate of crows, 
 
 With corn-soaked whisky drunk, where caws 
 
 Mocked justice and defied your laws. 
 
 Grant, for a subject, seems too great. 
 Ah ! how he shrinks, chief-magistrate. 
 Fit but for camps, he adds disgrace 
 To glory, in the statesman's place. 
 What gentleman is not ashamed, 
 When his administration 's named ? 
 Who held the highest place on earth 
 At what its patronage was worth. 
 Who weighed his honors by th' amount 
 They added to his Bank account. 
 Who signed the "back-grab" bill, and saw 
 No shame in robbery by law. 
 Who used his office as an heir 
 Inheritance with friends might share, 
 Their wasted fortunes to repair ; 
 Or as a lease at rack-rent held 
 Continuous crops th' exhausted field; 
 Until his office-trading crew, 
 Corrupting and corrupted, grew 
 So stenchful that the Nation lost 
 Faith in the party that he curst. 
 And raging, passed her helm to those, 
 She knew her natural, deadly foes, 
 Whose lives were spent to work her woes. 
 
Grant, G-eneral, President, third term Candidate. 177 
 
 Who's this, who travels foreign lands, 
 
 Hob-nobs with princes, and demands 
 
 Of dukes and marshals, precedence 
 
 Awarded ex-King's impotence ? 
 
 Who, grown too great to dwell at ease, 
 
 Save where men, fawning, cringe their knees 
 
 Before Power's image, roves and waits, 
 
 Till faction-torn and purse-ruled States, 
 
 Beg Bismarck's pupil centralize 
 
 Two putrified confed'racies. 
 
 Who can not breathe your common air, 
 
 But must to palaces repair, 
 
 Their adulation to inhale, 
 
 Who judge of greatness by its tail, 
 
 As Scotchmen knew a chieftain's State 
 
 By red-legged gillies at his gate. 
 
 Be warned, O, Brothers ! when you hear 
 The brawling mob join Mammon's cheer, 
 As he across your land is rolled 
 In palace car, bedecked with gold ; 
 And faction-nursing statesmen prate, 
 How he alone can save the State. 
 While every hungry sycophant 
 That shamed his office bawls for Grant ; 
 Lest in the third-term candidate, 
 An Emperor you educate. 
 
 Where Mobs, unreasoning, rule, still Saul 
 Will vault to power, because he 's tall. 
 The throne is always ready made 
 Wherever its foundation 's laid. 
 
178 Why King Saul superseded the Judge. 
 
 He who his chamber swept and cleaned, 
 Expelled, but did not slay the fiend, 
 Yet left it without watch or ward, 
 Returned to find his labors marred ; 
 No tears avail, his last hope's o'er 
 As Hell throngs thro' his open door. 
 
 When Freedom's light chased Feudal gloom, 
 
 And France, awakening, burst her tomb, 
 
 Man's masters saw her axe's sheen 
 
 Grow ruddy in the Guillotine. 
 
 How raged the tyrants, cowed, dismayed, 
 
 As in its grooves the avenger played, 
 
 And in their livid faces sped 
 
 Her battle gage, a Bourbon head, 
 
 As Justice struggled to repay 
 
 An Age's tortures in a day. 
 
 The Flag that flamed for Human Right, 
 
 Fierce from their dens, the hordes of night, 
 
 In countless myriads swarmed to rend, 
 
 Lest Liberty and Love should blend 
 
 The jarring nations, and their rush 
 
 O'er toppling thrones, Earth's purpled crush. 
 
 France called, "To arms !" Oppression's hounds 
 
 Soon sought their lairs to lick their wounds. 
 
 O'er Kingdoms shattered, franchised slaves, 
 
 The bright Tricolor proudly waves ; 
 
 And from its blended rays spreads wide 
 
 The light that shrivels greed and pride. 
 
 France stood among her debris, where 
 The Bastile and the House of prayer, 
 
Napoleon, General, Consul, JSmperor. 179 
 
 The aborting Nunnery ; the cells 
 
 Where pious Onanism dwells ; 
 
 The lordling's castle, whose grim frown 
 
 For generations scared the town ; 
 
 The palace, whose each sculptured stone 
 
 Was bedded in .a dying groan 
 
 Of the gaunt serfs who built the stacks 
 
 Of proud Versailles, and died of tax ; 
 
 All lay, materiel to her hand, 
 
 Ready for building. Had she planned 
 
 Her Freedom's Temple on the rock 
 
 Of stern Equalit} r , no shock 
 
 Could have disturbed its solid base ; 
 
 No tempest could have torn her race 
 
 From its strong, grouted battlement, 
 
 Each course in Human Love cement. 
 
 But France a man had deified, 
 And low Ambition, gew-gawed pride, 
 Floating to power on Freedom's flood, 
 Reaped the rich harvests of her blood. 
 Spawn of Vendettas, Corsic' bred, 
 Of pity void, in conscience dead, 
 Man's direst curse, the self-made man, 
 Bechrismed by the Vatican ; 
 Flaunting the bees of Charlemagne, 
 Over her destinies held rein. 
 
 The egotist of all his race, 
 A daemon, masked by human face, 
 Who reckoned every year's increase 
 Of forty millions as a lease, 
 
180 The Empire. 
 
 And conscripts annually spent, 
 
 As farthings of a profit rent, 
 
 Was Daiiton's heir, whose dying cry, 
 
 "Let my name in oblivion lie 
 
 If France, dear France, may but be free," 
 
 Thrills human hearts with harmony 
 
 To music of the spheres attuned, 
 
 Where Loving Reason sits enthroned. 
 
 A generation was his purse, 
 Who, foreign to the Universe, 
 With no desire but that his name 
 Should swell the puffing cheeks of Fame, 
 Scattered its lives, as nominees, 
 Their coppers fling, a Mob to please, 
 Whose raucous throats the expense repays 
 With hoarser shouts of brutal praise. 
 Insane with adulation's breath, 
 His glory stuffed the maw of Death ; 
 And millions sacrificed to fate, 
 To make one little mortal, great. 
 
 On every threshold, Mourning stood, 
 Gazing upon the fiery flood, 
 'Whelming beneath its lurid waves 
 By myriads, Glory's shrieking slaves : 
 And, moaning, saw with dripping eyes 
 War's dreadful balance hang in skies, 
 By battle smoke appalled, to weigh 
 The claims of nations joined in fray. 
 The world, distracted, drowned in gore, 
 Drifted on seas without a shore ; 
 
" Glory" quantum sufficit. 181 
 
 While his insatiate lust of power, 
 
 Poured o'er its tides Gomorrah's shower, 
 
 And Earth was sulphurous as Hell, 
 
 While tonsured knaves tolled Freedom's knell. 
 
 Glory ! O, Grant ! we've had enough ! 
 For it snakes annually slough 
 Their out-grown uniforms, to fright 
 The pastures with their appetite ; 
 To scare with venom-spotted coat, 
 Music from Nature's lilting throat. 
 Let it suffice that History's style 
 Declares you had the " longest tail," 
 Nor asks " Where is it ?" as she writes 
 Praise of your suicidal fights. 
 
 The cannon is the hero's plow, 
 And in its furrows laurels glow, 
 Which flourish, with a lustrous green . 
 More vivid than in Nature 's seen, 
 With eyes, spent by the crimson spread 
 On Glory's murder-sheeted bed ; 
 But stronger sight beholds the wreath 
 Unglamoured, with the hues of death. 
 
 When serfs, with rustling laurels bind, 
 His brows, who dominates his kind, 
 Honors upon a butcher heap, 
 And at his feet submissive creep, 
 His emulation grown insane, 
 Possesses all his frenzied brain. 
 Of all Man's heroes, one alone, 
 
182 "Sic itur ad astral 
 
 Who had no children, schemed no throne. 
 
 Who hopes a second Washington ? 
 
 For, as a drunkard, loathing wine, 
 
 Must dash his brandy with cayenne, 
 
 Whose liquid fire alone contents 
 
 His jaded, palled, and craving sense ; 
 
 So dread Ambition, void of shame, 
 
 Ambition that no force can tame 
 
 Whose palate, blood alone can move, 
 
 Deadened to taste of natural love, 
 
 With fever baked, and drouth-cracked lips, 
 
 The nectar of destruction sips. 
 
 His narrow grooved, straight-driving mind, 
 
 Plunges thro' cowering mankind, 
 
 And throws their corses from his track, 
 
 As tho' engine demoniac, 
 
 And, driven by steams of Hate, were hurled 
 
 Across a scared and shudd'ring world. 
 
 His life is but contested game, 
 
 To win a halo for his name ; 
 
 He holds his fellow as a pawn, 
 
 From chess-board, by his death, withdrawn ; 
 
 His loss regretted, if his aid 
 
 is needed, as the moves are played, 
 
 Which, winning, Victor seats on high 
 
 To rule, as God, Man's destiny. 
 
 By demi-Gods, dehumanized, 
 
 Unstinted power alone is prized. 
 
 For wider sway Ambition raves, 
 
 And rears his throne on countless graves ; 
 
Foot-prints of the Demigods. 183 
 
 Yet Alexanders die and leave 
 
 No heirs, so granting Man reprieve ; 
 
 But Creed grants immortality 
 
 To tyrants, whose malignity, 
 
 In God's name, wars with every trace 
 
 Of Manhood in earth's timid race. 
 
 SoGhengis Khan and Tamerlene 
 Are dwarfed by gentle Nazarene, 
 Tho' each his age, all rabid, tore, 
 And flooded Asia's plains with gore ; 
 Tho' pyramids of skulls might claim 
 Each was a deity, lacking name. 
 
 For his apotheosis still 
 
 Works on his race enduring ill, 
 
 As each dull generation sprawls 
 
 In reverence before the scrawls 
 
 Of lousy monks, whose pot-hook lies, 
 
 Graven in Mind's mud, Time petrifies ; 
 
 As fossil prints of Dinornis, 
 
 Left in the Permian age, on dust 
 
 Of Earth's unstable, shifting crust, 
 
 Now carved in old red sandstone, fright 
 
 Surviving Mesozoic wight, 
 
 Who cries in reverential fear : 
 
 " Behold his tracks ! Lo ! God was here ! " 
 
 While Pickwick commentators read 
 
 Each, his own version of a creed, 
 
 Found in the meaning, mystic, dark, 
 
184 Vox, et prceterea nihil. 
 
 And as the Argyraspides 
 Met vision-seeing Eumenes, 
 In the pavilion whence the ghost 
 Of Alexander ruled the host, 
 And heard his vacant throne declare 
 The cunning Cardian his heir ; 
 So priests in solemn council meet 
 Around their Lama's empty seat, 
 And congregations dwarfed and dull, 
 Of reason void, of reverence full, 
 Persuade the palates own the taste 
 Of steak, tho' biscuit 's their repast, 
 And snicker in their sleeves, as Fraud 
 Incarnates the Almighty God. 
 
 Thus eighteen centuries have felt 
 The curses of their boundless guilt, 
 Who strive to flex the human knee 
 Before a human deity, 
 And scatter from a victim's cross 
 Rays blinding man to Nature's laws. 
 The tyrant-trampled womb of Time, 
 By terror shocked, affright with crime, 
 Breeds vile abortions in a race 
 Perpetuating Earth's disgrace ; 
 Who feels and answers to his force 
 As Progress drives her on her course, 
 And sees, disgusted, brute Yahoos 
 Feed torpid mind on thought's refuse. 
 
 Aye ! scarce a man a century boasts, 
 Dreads not their God, nor fears their ghosts, 
 
In medio tutissimus ibis. 185 
 
 Whose Reason, uncontaminate 
 
 By lust, ambition, creed, or hate, 
 
 And undistorted by a youth 
 
 Of melancholy, cellar-growth, 
 
 Can know and grasp the golden mean 
 
 'Twixt bigot's snarl and atheist's spleen, 
 
 But finds in universal Love 
 
 The lever which the world can move, 
 
 Its fulcrum in the heart of Man, 
 
 Brain-fed, with muscles artizan; 
 
 While over earth the abortions swarm, 
 
 Whom lust, or greed or creed deform, 
 
 And for Barabbas rend the skies, 
 
 As 'neath his cross scourged Jesus lies, 
 
 Who with Sanhedrim dared debate, 
 
 And fought, lone-handed, world of hate. 
 
 Still Pilate 's in the judgment seat, 
 Still the hoarse mob's crude curses greet 
 Your monarch-victim ; Death alone 
 Can crime of Love for Man atone. 
 As Law, relentless plies his knout, 
 Each moan 's applauded by a shout 
 Insensate. Priests with praise devout, 
 Thank Ahriman that Toil 's chastised 
 Where Mammon, Man has civilized. 
 Still dances happy Barabbas, 
 Still Jesus staggers neath his cross ; 
 Still all the tribes of Jewry toss 
 Their boomerang curses at his head, 
 Swift whirring to their hearts who speed 
 The weapons Hate makes use, to goad 
 13 
 
186 Progress fettered by Faith. 
 
 Faint Labor up the rocky road 
 To grim Golgotha, there to swing 
 On Treason's gibbet, Nature's King. 
 
 O ! Toilers, whose stained garments strewed 
 The King of Toil's triumphal road. 
 Ye saw him hang, all stark and cold, 
 Who dared withstand the strength of Gold. 
 Hope yet no triumph Power will rob, 
 While Priest is echoed by the Mob. 
 
 When the mild Caesar saw, elate, 
 
 On earth, no rival to his state, 
 
 And Rome's last foe submissive cower 
 
 Before her fierce, remorseless power : 
 
 In love with peace, he prophecied, 
 
 " No more by wars shall nations bleed. 
 
 The wasting fires that camps illume 
 
 No more shall light the Roman's home ; 
 
 Controlling all things, and secure, 
 
 Long shall in peace our sway endure, 
 
 Till, even the sight of arms abhorred, 
 
 Men shall lose skill to forge the sword. 
 
 The ox shall speed the shining share ; 
 
 The horse forget the trumpet's blare ; 
 
 The captives huddled in our marts, 
 
 In freedom, ply industrial arts ; 
 
 O'er every land Rome's judge shall wield 
 
 Rome's law, all men from wrong to shield." 
 
 Even while the stern-browed soldier dreamed, 
 
 Behold ! the avenging daggers, dimmed 
 
 With his life-drops, who dared to close 
 
Reaction, the result when power aids Progress. 187 
 
 The gates which Mars wide open throws: 
 Who dared to set men, trained by hate, 
 To dig canals and irrigate ; 
 That Ceres harvest-thirst might slake 
 When hot with dragging sheaf-full rake ; 
 As the fierce legions, fed by strife, 
 Swept from their path a Caesar's life, 
 Whose eye thro' the dim future saw 
 A world of lovers, ruled by Law. 
 Imperial Rome, her mouth in dust, 
 Her virgins yields Carinus' lust; 
 For Consul sees, in Cato's seat, 
 His beardless, painted catamite. 
 As wolves, in undefended walk, 
 Ravage the timid, trembling flock, 
 And mad with blood, insanely slay, 
 When hunger glutted with their prey, 
 So her fierce mercenaries spoiled 
 The gathered treasures of the world ; 
 Her citizens, with flying feet, 
 Met death in every purpled street ; 
 Their power unchecked, her direst ban, 
 Her legions, were the foes of Man. 
 
 A Mob is crazed material force, 
 By ganglions nerved, acephalous : 
 A hurricane, devoid of aim ; 
 A chaos torn with driving flame. 
 Embodied wrath, with foam-flecked jaws, 
 Disdaining e'en a whirlwind's laws; 
 A maelstrom, whose ingulphing swirl 
 To ruin drags the cause of quarrel, 
 
188 Briar eus, naked and uniformed. 
 
 Blent with its own wrath-boiling foam, 
 
 Hating, and hated, to one doom. 
 
 A Horror, which the depths reveal 
 
 Of the wide gulf where God is still ; 
 
 A body, sinewed, nerved by Hate, 
 
 It must destroy and can't create. 
 
 An Army is a Mob, whose drill 
 
 Its forces bind in unit will ; 
 
 Combined and serried impotence, 
 
 To lock-step trained for violence. 
 
 A Typhoon which a daemon rides, 
 
 And to his aim its fury guides. 
 
 In it Power gathers, bands, and forms 
 
 The Mob's Briarean, tossing arms, 
 
 In one huge muscle, with one nerve, 
 
 With must its one fell impulse serve. 
 
 A Chaos organized, whose void 
 
 Lies cold below a brooding God. 
 
 Where Hate is normal, arid decay 
 
 Evolves from death the phosphor "ray, 
 
 Which seen thro 1 " Glory's" prism pours 
 
 Hell's lustre on the crimes of wars. 
 
 A School for Murder, whence struts Pride, 
 
 Booted and spurred, on Man to ride, 
 
 Where vulture hearts are graduate; 
 
 It but destroys, and can't create. 
 
 Such are the foes that Man should dread, 
 
 Begot by power, and bred by creed, 
 
 Vampires or gnats on Toil they swarm, 
 
 And sorn on Labor to deform 
 
 A world whose nobler instincts tend 
 
 A perfect Earth, with Heaven to blend. 
 
The "Social System:' 189 
 
 Society 's a crude machine, 
 
 Whose every creaking cog is seen 
 
 Eaten with rust, by friction worn, 
 
 And planned throughout in Reason's scorn. 
 
 Of all the fuel it requires 
 
 To feed its smoking, smouldering fires, 
 
 It can't the thousandth part compute, 
 
 As into natural force transmute. 
 
 Its draughtless chimneys, filled with soot, 
 
 With reeking, vaporous smut pollute 
 
 Its crazy and uncentred wheels, 
 
 Whose jarring din lost power reveals ; 
 
 Its boilers, caked, their every seam 
 
 Is open, and the hissing steam 
 
 Scalds the grimed workmen from each vent, 
 
 Thro' which its wasted might is spent. 
 
 Earth shaken by the ceaseless jar 
 
 Of rattling engines, thinks that War 
 
 Is normal state of Man, because 
 
 He suffers Greed to frame his laws. 
 
 Cowed Labor sees the tiger heart, 
 
 From Toil clutch gold, and fame from Art ; 
 
 Tho' outraged Nature, thro' her tears, 
 
 Declares that for ten thousand years, 
 
 She's tireless worked with cunning skill, 
 
 To breed from claws the artist nail. 
 
 Hell by the jangle 's entertained, 
 Creed swears the friction, God-ordained, 
 That he who dares to lubricate, 
 Order attacks, and wounds the State. 
 
190 Predominance of the brute in Man. 
 
 'Tis garden zoological, 
 Where monkeys climb, and boas crawl, 
 Where tigers and hyenas prowl, 
 Baboons and orang-outangs scowl, 
 Where every base, carniverous brute 
 Grows fat by Law in Toil's pursuit, 
 And sheltered in their tax-built den, 
 Keep all the race of working men 
 So busy bringing swine and sheep, 
 Pigeons and bullocks to their keep, 
 They never think the growling beasts, 
 Are not entitled to their feasts. 
 
 'Tis Anarchy, where Power takes trust 
 Of Labor's right, and holds it just, 
 From age to age he should receive 
 Such wage as but permits him live 
 Scarce half of Nature's days, to crawl, 
 Law-weighted, to his half-paid toil, 
 Feeding 5 on rinds and husks, and clothed 
 In his cast garments, patched and mothed. 
 
 Power gathers every drop of sweat, 
 And blends them in the coronet 
 Of Railway King, and Millionaire, 
 Of Bishop, Usurer, and Peer. 
 Who with a mumbled Gospel scare 
 The sorry wight back to despair, 
 If their attentive ears hear, Why ? 
 Half whispered in his voiceless sigh, 
 And hire his hungry pipe-clayed child, 
 To herd, and shoot if he grow wild. 
 
The burden of Love. 191 
 
 Their systems, gendering hate, enforce 
 
 Its laws on human intercourse. 
 
 And as faint Christian could not win 
 
 His heaven when burdened by his sin, 
 
 So man can not attain success 
 
 In life, while on his shoulders press 
 
 The weight of human love ; he trips 
 
 In Greed's path, when he fellowships. 
 
 Each in his brother seeks a tool 
 
 To work his ends, and knows him fool 
 
 But fit for Mammon's sneer, who'll prate 
 
 How selfishness must generate 
 
 Perpetual and cruel wrong, 
 
 The weak still herded by the strong. 
 
 All individuality 
 
 Is eaten by gnawing penury ; 
 
 The swarming toilers grow alike, 
 
 As minnows, while each lonely pike 
 
 Drives thro' their garbage-tainted pool 
 
 The orie-idea'cl, helpless school ; 
 
 Each semi-conscious of his doom, 
 
 And yet each glad, to find more room 
 
 For his fins, as his fellows float 
 
 Weak-wiggling down th' expectant throat, 
 
 Still growing wider, as each bite 
 
 Blends in the wide-jawed appetite. 
 
 Behold ! O, Brothers ! here revealed 
 The Pike, in every cowl concealed, 
 A chapel-dedicating priest, 
 Clamoring to be monopolist 
 
192 A dead tongue for a dead Grod. 
 
 Of the " Glad Tidings," that his chant 
 
 Drones thro' the drumless ears of Want 
 
 In a dead tongue, lest Thought may wake, 
 
 And his Salvation-shop forsake. 
 
 Bracing the state he arrogates, 
 
 With emblematic petticoats ; 
 
 That as a chasuble, his frock 
 
 May awe his kneeling, shivering flock, 
 
 Close shorn, as from the wind-swept fold, 
 
 The cross must shine in burnished gold, 
 
 Tho' every temple God has built 
 
 Is roofed with shame, is black with guilt. 
 
 The Bishop solitary lives. 
 
 What human sympathy survives 
 
 In him, who 's sworn to never share 
 
 With mother's love, a father's care. 
 
 Thro' whose heart raptures dare not sing, 
 
 As loving arms around him cling ; 
 
 The " Father" of a diocese, 
 
 Where schools are scarce, and throng, police, 
 
 He rears his flat-browed brood as though 
 
 'Twere sin to learn and crime to know ; 
 
 Till they, in his wine-oozing face, 
 
 Who 's great, because all else are base, 
 
 See something more than clay, and kneel 
 
 In meek humility, to feel 
 
 Upon their thirsty souls, the drip 
 
 Of unction from his greasy lip. 
 
 As Reynard, trap-despoiled of brush, 
 Th' advantage boasts, without a blush, 
 
The crime of Continence. 193 
 
 Of naked hurdles, to induce 
 
 His fellows their tails to misuse ; 
 
 So he, on Nature would improve 
 
 But shames her by excising love. 
 
 His flabby palms with blessings curse, 
 
 The maid Creed-driven to her hearse, 
 
 Who, buried in the convent's gloom, 
 
 Mocks Nature with an idle womb. 
 
 Happier if skinny babe she pressed, 
 
 In famine to her milkless breast, 
 
 Though shapen in iniquity 
 
 Its birth assured her infamy. 
 
 Aye, happier thus, than as. a Nun 
 
 To win Faith's Heaven, by life undone ; 
 
 Happier by couple-beggar spliced, 
 
 Than loveless, childless, " Spouse of Christ." 
 
 The Virtue 's Death, that dares deny 
 
 God's law " Increase and multiply ! " 
 
 It dries affection at its source, 
 
 And in dazed brains excites remorse, 
 
 To gnaw the heart, that never errs 
 
 When Love his throbs to Life transfers. 
 
 The Bishop's solitary life 
 
 Is spent in an unnatural strife 
 
 With lust, as he's forbid the joy 
 
 Of Love, and Manhood must destroy, 
 
 As Origen, to know subdued 
 
 The phantoms, which, in solitude, 
 
 Throng thro' his fevered, poisoned brain, 
 
 In blood refused its natural drain. 
 
 A moral eunuch, if a saint ; 
 
 If not, a beast that knows restraint, 
 
194 Reasoners against Reason. 
 
 But as an amorous stallion fears 
 The whiplash whizzing 'round his ears, 
 Who, wide as Deity's command, 
 Scatters his image thro' the land ; 
 And each, or saint, or hypocrite, 
 For Man's example, all unfit. 
 
 But better, either, than the horde 
 
 Of pew-fed paupers who have bored 
 
 His patient ear with maudlin song 
 
 Of Book Inspired, that bolsters wrong ; 
 
 False as Munchausen's diary, 
 
 Its title page a triple lie. 
 
 Full of absurdities its Text, 
 
 Squat on the throne of God, has vext 
 
 The dismal world, since Sinai saw 
 
 God's mall and chisel graving Law. 
 
 " Index Expurgatorius," 
 
 Creed, cunning as idolatrous, 
 
 Have sealed so close the Catholic's eyes 
 
 He can't detect its swarming lies. 
 
 But, papal God not yet has crossed 
 
 The rough Atlantic, tho' his host 
 
 Answer his snarls o'er Europe's bones 
 
 And gladly see he but postpones 
 
 His voyage here, till there he gnaws 
 
 The last worn shred of Freedom's cause. 
 
 Till Asia, fed by th' excrement 
 
 Of Lama, incarnate, content 
 
 Beholds her sister continent 
 
 In brainless adoration fall 
 
 Like her, the Man-God's hopeless thrall. 
 
God, in the Constitution. 195 
 
 For these pervert a wider brain, 
 
 A more enlightened thought, profane, 
 
 And Progress kill, a prattling boy ; 
 
 While those his foetal life destroy. 
 
 For these have breathed a purer air 
 
 For these have lived with Man, and share 
 
 His instincts, hopes, fears, appetites 
 
 His toils and pleasures, pains, delights, 
 
 Yet tireless, and incessant plead 
 
 For domination of the Creed, 
 
 Which, where it reigns, can but debase 
 
 And idiotize a Faith-dwarfed race. 
 
 Pike ! said I; Brethren, 'tis a Shark 
 
 Hovers round your storm-driven Ark, 
 
 Nosing its hull, in Time's wide flood, 
 
 Whose equal Law is equal Good ; 
 
 Waiting and hoping till the State, 
 
 Church governed, throws him human bait ; 
 
 As slavers when their cargoes pine, 
 
 Toss victims in the yeasty brine, 
 
 And see, from smeared and blood-stained deck, 
 
 The swift fins following in their wake, 
 
 To glean the debit which the hold 
 
 Has lost when Man 's the prey of Gold. 
 
 Another pike is here, whose jaw 
 Can never satiate his maw. 
 The manufacturer, who sees 
 Each profit year his wealth increase, 
 
196 The successful business man. 
 
 Compounded monthly, by his sales ; 
 
 Compounded daily, as he scales 
 
 His workmen's wage, who plundered, cope 
 
 With orders, fines, and " Toffy shop." 
 
 Till the successful business man, 
 
 Who as a huxter, trade began, 
 
 Can point, self-made, with honest pride, 
 
 His smoking stacks, as forests hide 
 
 The cindered, barren country side ; 
 
 Where not a bud dares promise show ; 
 
 Where not a blade of grass dares grow ; 
 
 Where, save the stagnant pool, no green 
 
 In all the dull expanse is seen. 
 
 Where the chill, melancholy air 
 
 Clings to the desert, bleak, and bare, 
 
 As tho' its sooty, blasting cloud 
 
 Enwrapped dead Nature as a shroud 
 
 Woven by the stacks, whose vomit spreads 
 
 Blight o'er the desolated meads. 
 
 Where, as the rueful traveler passed 
 Across the pauper-crowded waste 
 Unroofed, dismantled, windowless, 
 Inhabited in noisomeness, 
 The tottering, doorless houses spued 
 On the black road, their naked brood, 
 Clamoring for bread at each approach 
 Of the slow, grinding, deafened coach. 
 While men, and women, ragged, soiled, 
 Fathers ! and mothers ! silent scowled, 
 In dull and simmering rage, at those 
 Whose scattered pence revealed their foes. 
 
His victims. 197 
 
 Throughout the spreading misery 
 
 Live Engines writhe in agony, 
 
 Their iron chains clanking, wildly whirled 
 
 In torment screeching, while the World 
 
 Of shrieking dissonance in scare, 
 
 Lies jarred and trembling round their lair. 
 
 But night-time in that greed-cursed ground ! 
 
 Then, each huge factory seemed a mound, 
 
 Where Titans wounded, prison-held 
 
 By angry gods, in anguish yelled, 
 
 All prone, beneath their high-heaped wrath, 
 
 And wailed, and moaned, and shrieked for Death, 
 
 And to Olympus, pitiless, 
 
 Complained in hating helplessness. 
 
 The torments they endured, as Rage 
 
 Almighty lowered above their cage. 
 
 Night ! in the hideous blasted spot ; 
 
 Night ! when each furnace glared red-hot : 
 
 When darkness clov'n by lurid beams, 
 
 Echoed with hoarse and blasphemous screams 
 
 Of flitting shades, who strove to reach 
 
 The deafened sense, with howling speech. 
 
 Night ! when each chimney, as a pyre, 
 
 Belched day's smoke, changed to purpled fire. 
 
 Night ! when the rattling, crashing din 
 
 Of every strange and wierd machine 
 
 Broke like fiend's laughter thro' the gloom, 
 
 At toilers groping to their doom, 
 
 As feeding monsters in their caves, 
 
 They earned the wage of crusts and graves. 
 
198 The base of Society. 
 
 Night ! Pestilence with Terror tramps 
 Thro' the foul lanes where Toil encamps, 
 Whose air and water, drink and breath, 
 Laden alike with spores of death, 
 The husband drove, with stagg'ring feet, 
 To snatch from gin a quicker fate. 
 
 Night! the dead-cart with rumbling wheels, 
 From out the gruesome shadow steals 
 Across the furnace flare, to show 
 The orphan's grief and widow's woe, 
 Keening and screaming, as they make 
 A " walking funeral " in its wake. 
 
 Night ! at the windlass on the drift 
 
 The smeared stars fade, as "shift" meets "shift," 
 
 Driven ere the dawn, to seek their food 
 
 By danger massed, in solitude, 
 
 As each, within his narrow seam, 
 
 Upon his side, by flickering gleam, 
 
 Beneath the threatening roof, half propped, 
 
 Which yester on his fellow dropped, 
 
 With cramped pick drives Ms moiling way, 
 
 Yet farther from the sun-robbed day, 
 
 Shining at the pit mouth, as far, 
 
 To seeming, as a setting star. 
 
 Night there 's eternal. Never gleam 
 For soul, or life, of Heaven's beam. 
 The plodding wretch, whom Fate appears 
 To loathe, as thro' his snail-paced years, 
 Each hour knows all of death, as Damp 
 
Beneath '"Redeeming G-race" 199 
 
 Seeks through the mine a broken lamp, 
 
 Sells light for breath, to find a tomb, 
 
 Where noise is danger, danger, doom, 
 
 Or lives, if life it is, to see 
 
 His toil but earn deformity. 
 
 Lives ! Stranger on the earth, he sees 
 
 On Sabba-day thro' drunken eyes, 
 
 With vices cataract, that requite 
 
 The terrors of his week-long night ; 
 
 While Imitation-Christs, with hair 
 
 By hatchets split, from church doors stare 
 
 At the grimed foreigner, and tax 
 
 Faith's pen for evangelic tracts, 
 
 To teach him how to cleanse his soul 
 
 From sin, in a baptismal bowl, 
 
 Whose skin, with water unacquaint, 
 
 Would, were he hermit, prove him saint; 
 
 To teach him Christian hope and fear, 
 
 Rich with his "baccy" and his beer. 
 
 In vain all talk of Hell's hard fare ; 
 
 Bred in the mine, he does not scare. 
 
 Night there ! Ah ! darkness lines her pall, 
 Though Mammon hears his hired priest call, 
 " Let there be light ! " For light is not 
 Where Greed assigns his brother's lot. 
 
 The night that Heaven sends Man for rest, 
 The night, with peace and quiet blest, 
 Is stolen from Toil, to heap the debt 
 His brutal intellect owes to sweat, 
 Who, standing on his balance sheet, 
 
200 Law denies the creator's title. 
 
 Indignantly denies the cheat 
 Of the curst system, that bestows 
 All Labor's profit on his foes, 
 And spoils a thousand homes to rear 
 A son M. P., a grandson peer. 
 
 And when times come, as come they must, 
 When scant demands new price adjust ; 
 When money, yard-stick measuring worth, 
 Law changed, creates fictitious dearth, 
 He damps his engine-fires, and oils 
 His looms ; while on his gathered spoils 
 Living in luxury, they're his. 
 While those who earned them, in th' abyss 
 Of wageless misery, starving die, 
 Till new demand asks new supply. 
 
 Or on the ashed and dusty road, 
 
 The clemmed and red-eyed wretches plod, 
 
 To meet in Labor-Unions, where 
 
 Each speech intensifies despair ; 
 
 As Saxon words in accents stern 
 
 Burst from their hearts, whose eyes discern 
 
 In capital protect by laws, 
 
 The hungry beak and griping claws, 
 
 Which from Toil's entrails rive and rend, 
 
 The accursed and swollen dividend. 
 
 If fires are kindled which find vent, 
 While Mammon prates of "Discontent," 
 In blazing ricks, and flame-swept towns, 
 Working worse ruin on the clowns 
 
War domesticated. 201 
 
 Who light them, as their " Means of life " 
 
 Are squandered in the wanton strife, 
 
 Labor is dearest when too cheap ! 
 
 Who sows the wind must whirlwinds reap ; 
 
 And States on labor built, purvey 
 
 By idleness their own decay. 
 
 Arson's the clerk of opulence, 
 
 His crime is charging to " Expense " 
 
 Accumulated theft, to meet 
 
 His master with a balance sheet. 
 
 Just Nature for the item calls, 
 
 When he dares decorate his walls 
 
 With priceless paintings of fat apes, 
 
 Nibbling pomegranates, pines and grapes, 
 
 While legislating fellow dust 
 
 A criminal who craves a crust ; 
 
 If pride before destruction goes, 
 
 The "balance" is not forced, God knows! 
 
 The barking press but bays the moon 
 
 Whose shimmering shadows show " Commune " 
 
 To its distraught and fear-racked brains, 
 
 If savage equity ordains 
 
 Destruction. For the Commune's might 
 
 By vote, and law would force its right. 
 
 No Jack Cade o'er the Commune rules, 
 Which asks for tax to build up schools. 
 Jack Cades are those, who, having power, 
 Lock on your youth the school-house door 
 And steal their spelling-books to teach 
 14 
 
202 Human law "Death to the Unemployed" 
 
 Newton's Principia to the rich ; 
 Till, as a gutter-snipe, defiled 
 Brutal and ignorant, the child 
 Of Labor, wading from the slums, 
 A voting citizen becomes ; 
 From Kinder-gartens of the streets 
 In prison high-schools, graduates 
 With perjured ballots, fists and bricks, 
 To argue party politics. 
 
 Why should the Commune burn ? Such guilt 
 Not his, the heir of all that's built. 
 The Commune is, because Man loves ; 
 It wars with laws that Greed approves, 
 And struggling for the highest good, 
 Its claim is, Human Brotherhood ! 
 
 He solitary lives, who spurns 
 Toil's just demand, that what he earns 
 He should at least such measure share, 
 As fends him from the bleak despair 
 Of alms begrudged, and pauper jail, 
 When trade is dull, and markets fail. 
 Aye ! He's a pike, who, as he feasts, 
 The toiler's flesh and blood digests ; 
 His balanced book will not rebate, 
 Tho' Greed himself might advocate, 
 That wintering the working bee, 
 Is prudent, careful husbandry. 
 
 All minnows, they, whose thronging school 
 Wiggles in every factory's pool, 
 
Discord, fruit of Injustice. 
 
 Where capital through the machines 
 
 It owns, all Labor's profit gleans ; 
 
 Paying day's wage to one, who taught 
 
 By science, for a hundred 's wrought ; 
 
 Denying Capital in brain 
 
 And muscle any share of gain, 
 
 As tho' the strength that wields the sledge ; 
 
 The skill that ties the broken threads ; 
 
 The watchful eye that scrapes and oils ; 
 
 The care that 'neath the stars patrols ; 
 
 Were all inanimate, full paid, 
 
 Suffered to be, by " Laws of Trade," 
 
 While they can u profit" yield, and tossed 
 
 Aside, like worn out looms, when cost 
 
 Of swill, to fill their emptiness, 
 
 Of rags to hide their nakedness, 
 
 Is proven in the Counting House, 
 
 To exceed its gain on Calicoes. 
 
 Man 's more than engines. They have shared 
 
 All rights, when coaled, oiled, cleaned, repaired 
 
 Man lives by Progress, he must share 
 
 His dividends ; if not, he'll scare 
 
 The skurrying clouds, with frightful glare 
 
 Of conflagrations that illume 
 
 His wider woe, and deeper gloom. 
 
 Machines are daemons when they're fed 
 By Capital on Labor's bread ; 
 When, rat-like Arson, hiding, squeaks 
 His joy, as Night in terror shrieks, 
 And redder stars than Nature's fleck 
 Her firmament, from Small Soul's wreck, 
 
204 Machinery when Diabolic. 
 
 As down to earth its timbers crash, 
 
 And Small Soul's Factory lies in ash, 
 
 Grim smiles are wreathed round Justice' lip, 
 
 As tho' she saw a pirate ship 
 
 Struck by an serolite, and straight 
 
 Plunge hellwards with its horrid freight. 
 
 Commerce had lost it, 'twas Man's bane, 
 
 And none should weep save Sons of Cain. 
 
 They're daemons, when their iron arms wrench 
 
 The village cobbler from his bench, 
 
 The weaver from his hearth-lit loom, 
 
 Its blacksmith from his forge, and doom 
 
 Them, out-worked, fit each humbled neck 
 
 To wages' collar, at the beck 
 
 Of Capital, in kenneled street, 
 
 Their Freedom sold for refuse meat. 
 
 Their cottage gardens, weeds o'er grown, 
 
 Deserted for the squalid town, 
 
 Where space on earth to dwell denied, 
 
 Packed like sardines, their victims hide 
 
 In hive-like tenements, that buzz 
 
 With bickerings which know no truce ; 
 
 Wedged close in rented rooms, where stench 
 
 And shelter, measured by the inch, 
 
 Give Greed's last profit, rental price, 
 
 Too great for Labor, halved by vice ; 
 
 Each smothering in his neighbor's breath, 
 
 Gasping in air that's spored with death, 
 
 As dull attrition's lust-lit flame 
 
 Devours all love, and licks up shame, 
 
 Till Poverty 's a moral waste, 
 
 And Virtue wears the badge of Caste. 
 
When Angelic. 205 
 
 They're angels, trailing Love to Earth, 
 When full-fed men, in gleeful mirth, 
 See automatic workers fling 
 Upon their shoulders robes a King 
 Could not afford, when lives were spent 
 Upon pride's purple ornament, 
 Now wrapt around the artizan 
 By the deft fingers of his brain. 
 
 WhenThought,with steel-framed muscles wields 
 
 On Nature's multifarious fields, 
 
 The forces her arcana grant 
 
 'Gainst human ills and human want, 
 
 And welds and binds them, for the increase 
 
 Of comfort, pleasure, happiness. 
 
 They're Socialist as each whirling wheel, 
 
 Alive with its inventor's zeal, 
 
 By Genius taught to know its pace, 
 
 Revolves, untiring, in its place. 
 
 No gentleman or lady there, 
 
 Un toiling with the workman share, 
 
 And from his journals steal his oil, 
 
 To leave him creaking at his toil ; 
 
 No tramp, with broken cogs, for grease 
 
 Whines pitiful, in idleness ; 
 
 No friction jars, as each one earns 
 
 The oil it uses, as it turns. 
 
 All Socialist, for all unite, 
 And for one purpose blend their might, 
 For each aids all, for common good, 
 In happy, whirring brotherhood. 
 
206 The red-flag. 
 
 O ! Brothers ! Such was the intent 
 Of Nature. Human Government 
 Disdains her law, to lubricate 
 The idlers of each jarring State, 
 Whose friction legislation shames, 
 While Insurrection's axle flames, 
 And with the hot red flag of thralls, 
 Its Order, based on theft, appals, 
 For landlord, usurer, vagabond, 
 Never beneath the red flag trained ; 
 But over workmen it will float, 
 Whene'er the "journals " grow too hot. 
 And if to-day, less friction racks 
 The State machine, 'tis Man awakes 
 From his long swoon^ and knows its cause, 
 Not Nature, but unequal laws. 
 
 When Capital and Labor meet 
 
 On equal terms in balance sheet, 
 
 Machines are Socialist; but all 
 
 Their earnings claimed by Capital, 
 
 They thrive on man, as Cannibal 
 
 Upon his fellow. Dearth and Death 
 
 His certain fate in whom their teeth 
 
 Are fastened by the Laws of Trade, 
 
 And Progress flies from Earth, dismayed 
 
 To see inventive skill become 
 
 His deadly enemy, and gloom 
 
 Evolved from Science' brightening light, 
 
 Which should irradiate the night 
 
 Of ignorance, hunger, discontent, 
 
 In which his wretched years are spent s 
 
The fountain of Iniquity. 207 
 
 Enshroud his future with the pall 
 Woven in the looms of Capital. 
 
 Nay, who is this ? Time's basest spawn, 
 
 Pander at wholesale, glad to fawn 
 
 For paltry pelf, on alias quacks, 
 
 Assessing their infernal tax, 
 
 The credulous and ignorant 
 
 Debauching, by advertisement. 
 
 " No cure ! no pay! 'Tis cheap to sin ! 
 
 The risk is nothing. Boys, begin." 
 
 No longer fear the poisoned bed, 
 
 Here 's a specific, warranted. 
 
 O ! Maids who cling to chastity, 
 
 Lust need not dread fertility. 
 
 Prepared for all emergency, 
 
 Here 's certain " cure for pregnancy." 
 
 Who 's this, who prostitutes the press, 
 Man's natural lover, to caress 
 His purse-proud master, while he '11 jeer 
 Toil, claiming Right, as mutineer 
 'Gainst Law and Order, such as reigned 
 In Warsaw, when Suwarrow stained 
 With patriot blood in rivulets, 
 Her unsubdued, rebellious streets. 
 
 This livery hack with padded seat 
 For knaves, who stable-keeper meet 
 With proper fee, as they astride 
 
208 Argumentum baculinum. 
 
 The Editors, to office ride. 
 Buck-jumping and heel-flinging when 
 Black-mail refused, excites their spleen, 
 But ambling kindly when they feel 
 The silver spurs excite their zeal. 
 Who gaining doable profit, print 
 Lies whose insertion 's paid, on lint, 
 Blackened with poisons, that they vend 
 To earn the second dividend. 
 
 A licensed libeller each, expert 
 To plash e'en virtue's robe with dirt, 
 Secure from legal punishment, 
 If one bribed jury-man dissent. 
 (Such throng in each court's corridor, 
 And greet his winking counsellor.) 
 
 Black-mail his profit cash his creed, 
 
 Curbed now, but by a wholesome dread, 
 
 The raw-hide may the suit precede ; 
 
 Excusable its chastisement, 
 
 Its weal 's the proper argument 
 
 To force retraction when the key 
 
 Is found to the " Imperial We." 
 
 If John Smith signed his name, who'd care 
 
 For John Smith's libel, John Smith's sneer ? 
 
 The " We" 's the wide-mouthed trumpet blare, 
 
 Of " I" the puny slanderer, 
 
 Whose weak lungs thro' his blue lips toot 
 
 The organ's wide resounding hoot. 
 
 " We " claims endorsers for his lie, 
 
 Who dares not preface it with " I," 
 
The soul poisoner. 209 
 
 Tell me, what chlorides disinfect 
 
 Your homes, when men like these collect 
 
 With suction pumps, the sewer's stench, 
 
 And ply their hose, your rooms to drench 
 
 With pestilence, viler than that hid 
 
 In rags, by quarantine forbid, 
 
 When plagues infest a foreign land 
 
 Whence to import is contraband. 
 
 By trade, assassins, every sheet 
 
 They bawling scatter thro' the street, 
 
 Must stab some heart, that dogs may haste, 
 
 The libel, spurting death, to taste. 
 
 / 
 
 The sewer-fattened publisher 
 
 Of triple sheets, is murderer 
 
 Of souls, by head-lines, prurient 
 
 As Rabelais, drunken, could invent, 
 
 Who rakes with fine-tooth comb the stews, 
 
 And scatt'ring pox-scabs, calls them " News. 
 
 Or for a viler profit, deals 
 
 In assignation " personals ;" 
 
 Pimping at moderate advance 
 
 Upon another " ad's " expense. 
 
 O ! Swoln Chicago, the dull tide 
 That floats and feeds your warehoused pride, 
 Poisoned with faeces, blunts your nose, 
 Till the skunk cabbage and the rose 
 Compete in pleasuring its sense, 
 Sniffing as perfume, pestilence, 
 Else nausea would slime your streets, 
 Your stomach turned by vice-fouled sheets, 
 
210 The Devil Fish. 
 
 The issues of a putrid soul, 
 
 Whose rotting' body nears its goal, 
 
 Beyond Parisian skill to mend, 
 
 Wandering on earth, without a friend. 
 
 Foreign to Man, so full of bile, 
 
 A sneer 's the back ground of its smile, 
 
 Even now, as Swedenborgians tell, 
 
 'Tis damned in life, and breathes in hell. 
 
 The Devil-fish, with cartilage 
 As sucking arms for equipage 
 Of a digestion, which from mud 
 Absorbs its gross, repulsive food, 
 And growing quadrupled as Time 
 Wider expands the tissued slime, 
 Is Nature's fittest congener 
 To those whose daily threat and sneer 
 Attack blind Labor's stumbling steps, 
 As he to his fruition gropes. 
 
 And these, who charity blaspheme, 
 Who gird the weak, and hunt the lame ; 
 Who sneer at a parental state, 
 And crimes unknown before, create. 
 Are these of women born, whose breasts 
 For helplessness flow sugared feasts ? 
 They're shaped, as of the human race, 
 But never mammal was so base 
 As find a crime in wretchedness, 
 And add to misery, duress. 
 Why! even the filthy sewer-rat 
 Has, of his fellow, no such hate. 
 
The Tramp Law *~ guilty till proven inndcent." 211 
 
 His blind he has been seen to lead 
 
 Where he could, with his fellows, feed. 
 
 Tho' he, affinity can't trace, 
 
 The rat, obscene, still loves his race. 
 
 The rodent mouths that lead, with straws, 
 
 Spit scorn on men who pass ''Tramp Laws;" 
 
 Immeasurable distance parts 
 
 Man, from such men, devoid of hearts. 
 
 If, living in society, 
 
 Man parts with natural liberty, 
 
 His right to freedom is restored, 
 
 Wherever Law does not afford 
 
 Him work and wage for willing hand, 
 
 But leaves him, -shelterless, to stand 
 
 The long day in the market-place 
 
 Unhired, unfed, with hopeless face. 
 
 So 'tis no favor, but a debt 
 
 He asks, who craves for leave to sweat; 
 
 And 'till he has refused the " Means 
 
 Of Life " he 's offered, Justice screens 
 
 Him from all crime, though Poverty 
 
 Resorts, for bread, to beggary. 
 
 "Presumption" holds him innocent 
 
 Of any criminal intent. 
 
 Until, by proper proof, 'tis shown 
 
 That Nature has condemned a drone. 
 
 And yet Law's minions bring to task 
 The pinched, wan face, that dares to ask. 
 Wisconsin hunger goes unfed, 
 And crime of rags earns prison bread. 
 
212 Pity " accessory" to the crime of Poverty. 
 
 The empty, rumbling viscera 
 
 Of every tramp offends her law. 
 
 Even Wordsworth, thro' jail bars might stare, 
 
 If he took his " Excursion " there 
 
 And ventured, " Madam, if you please, 
 
 I faint ; bestow me bread and cheese." 
 
 If Bunyan's Pilgrim met the view 
 
 Of her policeman, from " the slough '' 
 
 Emerging, with his burden lost, 
 
 He'd meet the sheriff as his host ; 
 
 For sins are very " visible 
 
 Means of subsistence ;" and the cell 
 
 Would herd the Apostles, if without 
 
 Purse-bearing Judas they were caught ; 
 
 Since fish, w^th pennies in their gills, 
 
 Are now too scarce to pay th3 bills 
 
 They'd have to foot, if bare of scrip 
 
 They ventured on soul-saving trip. 
 
 Her shallow " Justice" has the cause 
 
 Decided, ere the bailiff's paws 
 
 Are off the shivering, ragged wretch, 
 
 Who dared, upon Earth's bosom, stretch 
 
 His famine-shriveled, aching limbs, 
 
 And feast his emptiness by dreams 
 
 Of wholesome food he never eats; 
 
 Of human love he never meets. 
 
 And sad-eyed Pity he should chide 
 
 Who with the famished dares divide 
 
 Her tear-wet crust ; she wrong connives 
 
 And should be sentenced to his gyves. 
 
 Law's phame should flush her gentle breast 
 
 Who hopes by blessing to be blest. 
 
Non'equidem invideo, miror magis. 213 
 
 For if 'tis criminal to receive, 
 
 'Tis surely wickedness to give. 
 
 No Catholic by "good works" can win 
 
 His Heaven, where charity is sin. 
 
 So saints must follow Calvin there, 
 
 And earn their bliss by faith and prayer. 
 
 Her guilty paupers, fair Racine 
 
 Sees go in fat and come out lean ; 
 
 Their swill-fed stomachs vainly yearn 
 
 For food, while they piano earn, 
 
 On which fat fingers music thrum 
 
 That wails of love in discord's home. 
 
 In every legislature snarls 
 
 Some pampered cur, like barking Quarles, 
 
 At poverty, that dares intrude 
 
 His master's gate, in search of food, 
 
 And sets his teeth in Lazarus' leg 
 
 If Dives' crumbs he dares to beg. 
 
 If he, who with the yelping street 
 
 Let Lazar' share his refuse meat 
 
 Now glares from Hell, and begs the " Tramp " 
 
 Across the gulf for something damp, 
 
 The abyss they'll herd in, who now " sic '' 
 
 Such hounds at sores they're fit to lick, 
 
 Must be beyond glad Lazarus' sight. 
 
 And where ! O ! where, the dogs that bite ? 
 
 Are these not Pikes, whose livelihood 
 Is gained by an unending feud 
 Which wars with every instinct given 
 For solace here, or hope of Heaven ? 
 
214 Argumentum ad hominem. 
 
 Fain would I stop, but here, again, 
 The ermine hides a pike in grain. 
 It shan't protect, he need not strip, 
 For thro' it the indignant whip 
 Of Honor can his shoulders gash, 
 Who murders confidence for cash. 
 
 As Stidger's climbing monkey showed 
 
 Posteriors to a wider crowd, 
 
 And more offended taste, as perched 
 
 On his high pole, his seat he smirched ; 
 
 So he, who up the " caucus " crawls 
 
 Until a judge, the mob installs, 
 
 For neither probity, nor sense, 
 
 For learning, nor for eloquence, 
 
 But for the livery on the back 
 
 Of the straight-ticket voting hack, 
 
 Climbing from his obscurity, 
 
 Will shame with his immodesty, 
 
 The blushing voters, as they stare 
 
 With rounded eyes, at buttocks bare, 
 
 Yet more exposed, as greater height 
 
 Advantage gives of wider sight, 
 
 Still smearing, as they strain, each rung 
 
 Of Honor's ladder, with their dung. 
 
 Though earning modest salary 
 
 Of thirty dollars, every day 
 
 He sits six hours on cushioned seat, 
 
 And blinks at victims in the net, 
 
 Y'clept of Justice, diet for 
 
 Each rav'ning saw-toothed orator, 
 
Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee. 215 
 
 The legal income for cabal 
 Elected judge is yet too small ; 
 Beggar on horseback ! see him ride ! 
 Gallop he must, else why astride. 
 The mediocre needing " style " 
 To gain scant reverence, must beguile 
 A " Thousand " from a trusting friend, 
 And take it as a dividend 
 Upon invested love, as bawd 
 Reciprocates regard with fraud. 
 
 Ask Knickerbocker What is Theft ? 
 
 He knows the law, his dollars left 
 
 Him legally, an autograph 
 
 Of Williams is their epitaph. 
 
 But when his hand insanely gropes 
 
 His empty pocket-book, what tropes 
 
 His tongue will struggle with, and fret, 
 
 To draw Law's line 'twixt Theft and Debt. 
 
 Hear him, with legal acumen, 
 The difference, terminal, explain, 
 'Twixt " Tweedle-dum," and " Tweedle-dee," 
 'Twixt confidence, and larceny. 
 " The purse when emptied by a note 
 For Restitution sues in " Debt." 
 But money stolen, courts replace 
 Through "Capias," "Replevin," "Case." 
 He who with shotted silken string- 
 Drop t deftly in the purse, can bring 
 By gentle tugging, loss and grief 
 Upon its owner, is a thief. 
 
216 Facinus, quos inquiriat, aequat. 
 
 Aye, Thief ! e'en tho' the breaking thread 
 Should disappoint the intended raid, 
 And his quick grasping hand ne'er clutch 
 The plunder that evades his touch. 
 
 But he, who using friendship's cord, 
 Has sympathetic feeling stirred, 
 And drawn his plunder from the heart, 
 In Law's no thief, he's only smart. 
 
 Asjudge^he can adjudicate 
 
 His punishment, who placed by fate 
 
 Too near temptation, nerveless, fell 
 
 As erst the mariner, to the spell 
 
 Of Circe, when the sorceress' wine 
 
 Men metamorphosed into swine. 
 
 Yes ! grieve ! because he can not stretch 
 
 The sentence of the sorry wretch, 
 
 Who trusted with the key, unlocks 
 
 The vault high-piled with watered % stocks, 
 
 And paying eight per cent, in gold, 
 
 On an increase of thirty-fold ! 
 
 (No Theft in that ! no Wrong ! no Fraud ! 
 
 'Tis "profit" by the Law allowed.) 
 
 So Angell garbed in Joliet stripe, 
 By the order of his prototype, 
 Awakes the careless gods' guffaw, 
 At vindicated human law. 
 And surly Minos hears them flout 
 His too discriminating knout, 
 Whose equal lash alike should fall 
 
Corporation Lawyers. 217 
 
 On judge, and sentenced criminal; 
 While Lachesis in anger throws 
 A quicker shuttle, that like clothes 
 May fit a filching judge when " Time ! " 
 Is called by the Commune on Crime. 
 Both judge and thief from Hades see 
 Grandsons deny their pedigree. 
 
 Perhaps, but oft the father's shame 
 
 By the descendant 's held for fame, 
 
 For human nature is so queer, 
 
 That many an ancestral smear 
 
 Is halo-circled, and disgrace 
 
 Seems honor to a dwindling race. 
 
 And who can say that Williams' strain 
 
 Next century, will not be vain ? 
 
 Talents like his are in demand, 
 
 To-day, a premium command, 
 
 As sharks, a pilot fish require, 
 
 So corporations keep on hire 
 
 Attorneys, like them, conscience-dead, 
 
 To show on what, and where to feed. 
 
 For such place, such director 's fit, 
 
 Where salary adds to perquisite ; 
 
 Such place, well-filled, his heirs may boast, 
 
 While Hades racks the griping ghost. 
 
 Why ! British peers are proud to show 
 Descent from lustful Charles' bye-blow, 
 And on each carriage panel paint 
 Bend-sinister to prove the taint 
 Inherited through leprous blood, 
 15 
 
218 Pride of Ancestry. 
 
 That earned from Royal lust, the fetid 
 By conquering Norman dedicate 
 To meet the expenses of the State ; 
 And many a lordling's grand and rich 
 Because he 's grandson of a bitch, 
 Whose coat of arms in Pall Mall proves 
 Honor descends from harlot loves. 
 What's in a name, De Young ? Transport 
 Kalloch's aspersion to the Court, 
 The angry mob that howled to lap 
 Your blood, would doff its greasy cap, 
 And rave for Kalloch's, if convinced 
 Your dam had fired a jaded prince. 
 
 From Pocahontas, F. F. V. 
 
 Is proud to trace his pedigree, 
 
 Who tumbled in a curtjupon 
 
 Before thief-listed garrison, 
 
 And won its heart, as pirouette 
 
 Made old men grin and young men fret. 
 
 Yet who would wonder if our Carter 
 
 Claimed, ancestress, Powhatan's daughter, 
 
 Never was wealthy Democrat, 
 
 But was at heart, Aristocrat. 
 
 Who voting cattle held in scorn, 
 
 Dyed " Dimekrats " e'er they were born, 
 
 And for some cause or other, felt 
 
 That he was better than the Celt. 
 
 Yet Irish boast the brutal horde 
 
 Who fell, before the Round-head's sword, 
 
The stools that stood in Tara's halls. 219 
 
 With pendant ossa coccygi, 
 
 The substitutes for modesty, 
 
 That Nature hung upon the sterns 
 
 Of savage, faith-taught, priest-led Kernes 
 
 Who howled in hell, while Cromwell saw 
 
 Their corpses stripped at Drogheda, 
 
 Proud their ancestral line to trace 
 
 To Bhrian Bhorhoim's bobtailed race, 
 
 And prove it by the rounded holes 
 
 That fitted them, in heirloom stools. 
 
 So Puritans, in Cotton Mather, 
 Boast of their spiritual father, 
 Whose faith was a perpetual itch 
 To hang a quaker, or a witch, 
 Who, murder hallowing, enjoyed 
 A life of bliss in righting God, 
 And taught his nibbling flock to bleat, 
 All terrorized by faith, for meat ; 
 And fed them on it, till their breath 
 Stank of their food, thro' canine teeth. 
 
 Another picture I must place 
 
 In the Rogues' Gallery, of his face, 
 
 For Justice urges every stripe 
 
 I lay upon him. he's a type. 
 
 Beyond his shoulders, every weal 
 
 They shrink from, makes a thousand squeal, 
 
 Whose "paper," issued by the Bank 
 
 Of Confidence, awards them rank, 
 
 Among the broadclothed hordes who clan 
 
 To prey upon the Artizan, 
 
220 Ex uno disce omnes. 
 
 By drawing dividends that are made 
 
 On stocks subscribed, but never paid : 
 
 Chartered for fraud, their gain their own, 
 
 Their loss on the deposits thrown. 
 
 Simple the plan of each machine, 
 
 'Tis " Tails you lose,'' and " Heads they win." 
 
 His note as Capital, in vault 
 
 Of Savings Bank now makes default, 
 
 Tho' year by year the investment gave 
 
 Him annual profit on each shave 
 
 That Haines' notched razor scraped from Toil 
 
 Well lathered by his soapy smile. 
 
 So Judge Financier riches got 
 
 By dividends upon his debt. 
 
 To you to-day, this man owes rank 
 Director of the Glasgow Bank, 
 Law-English would his ermine strip, 
 And parti-color back and hip, 
 Would tap and draw his dropsied gain, 
 And drive him from the haunts of men, 
 Lest babes in frightened wombs grow ripe 
 Untimely, with his Zebra stripe. 
 
 Sharks govern England, live on rent, 
 Such pikes as this they must prevent 
 Gorging on tenants, lest they lose 
 Ability to pay their dues. 
 Impairing landlords' revenues. 
 Minnows are dedicated there 
 Shark-food, so pikes had best beware. 
 
Set the yeese to guard the lettuce. 221 
 
 How shame a pike ; again your vote 
 
 He asks, despite his thieving note, 
 
 Which has no " credit," though for years 
 
 His salary paid, shows no arrears. 
 
 Tho' Honor would a miser scare 
 
 To make such paper worth its par. 
 
 Give it, O ! minnows, when he craves, 
 
 Why not ! Tis fit that English knaves 
 
 Default of sharks eat wages' slaves. 
 
 You're made for provender, God meant 
 
 Creating minnows, nutriment. 
 
 All priests can prove the fact; since Paul, 
 
 Denying it 's schismatical. 
 
 What differ, whether Hammei'head 
 
 Or Esox Williams on you feed, 
 
 The almighty potter knows his trade 
 
 You're vessels for dishonor made. 
 
 " Enough ! Enough ! " St. Lawrence cried, 
 
 Half-basted ; u Spare the other side." 
 
 "'Tis not enough ! " the gridiron fizzed, 
 
 " Half-roast is but half-canonized." 
 
 It takes another turn to make 
 
 Of such dry flesh a juicy steak, 
 
 You furnish suet, I will baste 
 
 O ! Storey ! till he'll please your taste. 
 
 Yet, when you smack your lips, all men 
 
 Will vote him Saint, and Judge again. 
 
 The ladle, here, when painful Thrift, 
 With coppers saved by many a shift, 
 Sought safety for his children's bread, 
 
222 Fidelity. 
 
 He saw the Judge Financier shed 
 
 Such lustre on " Fidelity," 
 
 He grew assured of solvency, 
 
 And showers of nickels filled the rill 
 
 Which drove the wheels of Mammon's mill. 
 
 Then see the Judge, hydraulic ram 
 
 Apply the rippling, dancing stream ; 
 
 And as its gentle current flows, 
 
 His house is built, with what he owes. 
 
 Your treasure on the avenue 
 
 In marble-front, now meets your view. 
 
 If your patched overalls dare stroll 
 
 The pave, where Wealth and Fashion roll 
 
 On smoothly swaying springs (to feasts 
 
 Your nickels pay for) Williams' guests. 
 
 Ah ! Brother Toilers ! 'tis by Law 
 Knaves sleep in down, and you in straw. 
 How dare you with deposits aid 
 The Usurer's unholy trade, 
 Participators of th' offence ? 
 Your loss is your just recompense. 
 
 With emptied purses you may moan 
 Your trust misplaced in dog of stone ; 
 The only guard the charter gave 
 Your wealth, and he upon the pave. 
 No bark escaped his faithless throat, 
 Tho' funds withdrawn, saw Williams' note 
 Balance the cash, and hide the void 
 As though a burglar had employed 
 
And yet he was an honorable man. 223 
 
 A few spare moments to indite 
 
 A promissory, by the light 
 
 Of his bull's eye, and thus requite 
 
 The treasury with a neat filled blank, 
 
 To prove he'd carried off the Bank. 
 
 Smoothly the golden current ran 
 The stream's force drove it, never plan 
 For legislating wealth could vie 
 Its " profit" till the stream ran dry. 
 Eleven thousand mint drops raised, 
 How many windows now are glazed 
 With old boots, petticoats and hats. 
 How many unkempt, shoeless brats 
 Skim swill barrels, since a judge impure 
 For ostentation robbed the poor, 
 Now bursting as the wind-filled frog 
 Who rivalled ox that neared his bog. 
 
 Now take your Saint, ye knaves that throne 
 
 The dollar, and its Godhead own, 
 
 Republicans who've lost all claim 
 
 To Stunner's party but its name, 
 
 The dirty bird that fouls its nest, 
 
 Down whose wide throat your food is pressed. 
 
 I think he's roasted, tho' the oil 
 
 Gave out, and it may be a broil. 
 
 He'll answer, you may build a shrine, 
 
 When Gold is God, the man 's divine. 
 
 So work to-day, a myriad rams, 
 
 As Cunning, conscienceless, builds dams 
 
224 Legal money. 
 
 To catch the little rills that through 
 The Law -parched fields of Labor flow. 
 The dams ne'er burst by plethora, 
 Tis legal thieves that pump them dry. 
 
 Would you know how and why, I'll spend 
 Some doggerel on that attend 
 
 Wealth can't be made by law ; two modes 
 Men have attempted ; one explodes 
 Scarce made ; the other slow corrodes, 
 Leaks all the oil, from ashes pressed, 
 Then panic squats on " profit's" breast. 
 
 Lauriston's Law did scheme invent 
 
 Of wealth create by government, 
 
 And floated France on wings of wax, 
 
 (The eighteenth century's greenbacks, 
 
 The poet meant who saw them melt 
 
 And after, poor Icarus smelt.) 
 
 The government stamped value there, 
 
 Gold glittered in the atmosphere, 
 
 Of wealth creating Lawgiver, 
 
 And France to meet the mirage, flew, 
 
 Then on a sand bank met the Jew. 
 
 The Interest ate the Principal, 
 
 And every son of Israel 
 
 Was happy as his sire of old 
 
 When running off with Egypt's gold. 
 
 Thus France, by her experience shows 
 
 Creating wealth 's creating woes. 
 
Credit - Wealth. 225 
 
 The other mode 's more roundabout, 
 
 Effect the same, is cause in doubt ? 
 
 By it, a dollar earned, the State 
 
 Can by a Statute copulate, 
 
 And in a year it will augment 
 
 In actual bulk, full ten per cent. 
 
 (Sherman gets four, large bodies move 
 
 With lazier legs to slower love, 
 
 But ten the Christian still expects, 
 
 The limit that the law protects.) 
 
 I never yet could comprehend 
 
 What juices with the metal blend, 
 
 Or how it is oviparous, 
 
 I think the growth is marvelous, 
 
 If not, in fact, miraculous 
 
 That Law no greater force has spent 
 
 Gend'ring the dollar, than the cent. 
 
 If dollar-making Law is crime, 
 
 The cent is made by Law and Time, 
 
 And Interest's but another name 
 
 For Law-made wealth, th' effect the same. 
 
 Issu& Greenbacks to-day, Perhaps 
 
 You've wealth, if Credit swells the scraps. 
 
 Interest allowed, you date your act 
 
 A year ahead to take effect, 
 
 'Tis Credit's wealth alone is lent 
 
 To worth, when Usury adds per cent. 
 
 Ten hundred to the borrower, 
 
 Eleven to the usurer, 
 
 The hun'dred dollars in his claw, 
 
 Is that not made, and made by law ? 
 
226 The cause of "Panics" 
 
 O ! Friends of Williams, Bankers, Jews, 
 
 How dare you, Greenback men abuse, 
 
 And claim you're chaste, Rag-baby spurn, 
 
 Because yours is " a little one ! 
 
 Is this " a little one !" whose clutch 
 
 Drags yearly from dazed Labor's hutch 
 
 His winnowed grain, and each decade 
 
 Leaps from his legal ambuscade, 
 
 With panic fury in the arm 
 
 Of principal to drag his farm 
 
 By Court's decree and Sheriff's deed 
 
 Into the bursting vaults of greed ? 
 
 Credit makes wealth by Usury 
 
 As Greenback laws by lunacy. 
 
 Until the aggregate of debt 
 
 Outweighs Toil's strength, defies his sweat, 
 
 Each year, the annual compound 
 
 Of interest on the money loaned 
 
 Enhances value, while men hold 
 
 Security as good as gold, 
 
 (No honest deacon is content 
 
 With less, where Law gives ten per cent.) 
 
 And though the intrinsic worth remains 
 
 The same, the nominal attains 
 
 Abnormal size, as every sale, 
 
 Yields "profit" till the debtors fail. 
 
 Then every creditor demands 
 
 His cash, or doubles it in lands. 
 
 When the huge principals compel 
 
 A market forced, as Sheriffs sell. 
 
The Panic." 227 
 
 The "Universal Customer" 
 
 Ceases to be a purchaser ; 
 
 Retailer, Merchant, Factor, all, 
 
 Must meet their paper, prices fall 
 
 Quick, fast, and faster, as they rush 
 
 Goods on the market, lest the swash 
 
 Of wid'ning bankruptcy engulf 
 
 The wealth of credit, Nature's pelf. 
 
 By competition, shriveled price, 
 
 Of product shrinks to sacrifice, 
 
 Till market worth is less than cost, 
 
 And all the wealth of Credit 's lost. 
 
 Economy then thrives on Life, 
 
 With purchasers the market 's rife, 
 
 Each glad to see his fellows wane, 
 
 Each glad to profit by their pain. 
 
 Products buy dollars, Trade 's reversed. 
 
 And Nature's last, the Jew, is first. 
 
 The pawnshop and the avenue 
 
 Hold grinning, whimp'ring interview. 
 
 Beauty holds virtue out for bread, 
 
 Sometimes she starves, but oft'ner 's fed. 
 
 Thousands of Tramps leave Labor's ranks, 
 
 As bummers hover on the flanks 
 
 Of army, swinging from its place 
 
 To get supplies from other base. 
 
 The money that the borrower got 
 
 To build his house, takes house and lot, 
 
 And leaves a judgment entered for 
 
 His wronged and suffering creditor. 
 
 His boys garrote ; his houseless pride 
 
 A refuge seeks in suicide. 
 
228 Who profit by the "Panic" 
 
 Fat bankers poke each other's ribs, 
 By discount coated as by dibs, 
 Their paper has collateral, 
 Its bad, but not their funeral. 
 In Curseall's parish 'twas he died, 
 Who but a fool would cry, outside ? 
 
 So each decade a panic crash 
 
 Shrinks Law-made wealth to solid cash. 
 
 And Labor, spoiled of all his gain 
 
 Is driven to face the world again, 
 
 More destitute than when at first 
 
 His delving spade found earth accursed. 
 
 Again he heaps his little store, 
 
 Again comes Sodom and her shower, 
 
 To punish men who try to breed 
 
 From Gold's base womb, with Law's crazed seed. 
 
 The weary earth her weary round, 
 
 Still whirls, Gold breeds, and Labor's ground, 
 
 The man-made monster can not cease 
 
 To grow. O ! Brothers give release. 
 
 The Jew takes courage; usuries add, 
 
 But panics triple what he had. 
 
 Messiah yet will spring to birth, 
 
 And David's throne rule all the earth, 
 
 The heathen among whom he plies 
 
 The unnatural adulteries, 
 
 Bond men and maids even now he buys, 
 
 In happy dreams, his 'heritance 
 
 Forever! On the track he pants 
 
 Of universal power, as gold 
 
 By usury yearly gains on mould. 
 
" Sangrado" ftherman, Panics do not "happen." 229 
 
 Ah ! woe is me ! for Pharaoh's host, 
 For Memphis' pride, and Thebais' boast, 
 All minnows in the wild waves lost, 
 While these, our pikes, in safety crossed. 
 Oh ! That I wielded Moses' rod, 
 I'd swamp them all, I would, by God t 
 
 These Frahkensteins that thrive on sweat, 
 By human laws are generate, 
 Innumerous they flood the earth, 
 And rend the womb that gave them birth. 
 Vermin, or tigers, ceaseless strife 
 They wage against man's higher life, 
 Short shrift should Labor's robbers have 
 If Man were wise himself to save. 
 In self defence, O ! Toilers, smite 
 Whatever makes your Wrong its Right. 
 Back to their stolen acres send 
 The grime and misery, that offend 
 The eyes of Love, where Mammon's stamp 
 Calls up the town, his sordid camp. 
 Where Man is dwarfed that few may gain 
 Abnormal force in wealth or brain, 
 Where Greed sees in the immortal soul 
 Machine, self-feeding oil and coal : 
 And use your rescued Liberty, 
 To found on Toil, Fraternity. 
 
 Where rolls the mighty Amazon 
 His turbid torrents to the sun, 
 O'er his immeasurable plain 
 Still vegetation conquers man ; 
 
230 "Eat or be eaten" 
 
 Who naked, and unsheltered, roams 
 Mid Nature's sempiternal glooms, 
 As heat and moisture, measureless, 
 The young world's virile force express, 
 In the dark forests, matted, dense, 
 Where life is riotous to sense ; 
 Whose miasmatic depths defy 
 His feeble fainting energy, 
 As denser jungles mock the toil 
 That clears and grubs the fervid soil. 
 
 There Emulation, Craftiness, 
 
 Aspiring Greed and Selfishness 
 
 In struggle for existence join 
 
 Their forces in the tree and vine. 
 
 The stately palm, in the stern strife, 
 
 Changes the habits of his life, 
 
 Throws off the graces of his tribe, 
 
 Forced, or to die, or meet its jibe, 
 
 And climbs, with tendrils, thro' the night 
 
 Of matted foliage to the light. 
 
 u Eat or be eaten! " sole Law there, 
 
 For Nature's God is deaf to prayer. 
 
 A baser life his toils requite, 
 
 And need creates a parasite. 
 
 So in the thronged and bustling street, 
 Where men as foes their fellows meet, 
 And each for growth, abnormal, fights* 
 The weaker must be parasites, 
 And losing manhood, shame a race, 
 Whose independence is its grace. 
 
Nature 1 8 Parasite*. 231 
 
 There, tho' the proud mahog'ny reigns, 
 
 And quelling meaner growth, disdains 
 
 His hating rivals, who assail 
 
 With ciaving roots his conquered soil. 
 
 And monarch of the woods, can mock, 
 
 With wide-spread base, the earthquake's shock, 
 
 While rearing high his gorgeous head, 
 
 Where emeralds their lustre shed. 
 
 Tho' his majestic trunk repels, 
 The force that in tornado swells, 
 Tho' his dense fibres' glowing life 
 A world wide deluge might survive, 
 Yet when the prideful giant sees 
 The tk murderous lliana " clutch his knees, 
 He knows, her heart pressed to his bole, 
 Relentless death has seized his soul ; 
 And when her arms around him strain, 
 To clutch, and form new source of pain ; 
 Behold ! his matchless strength and grace 
 All shuddering in her dire embrace ; 
 His doom is sealed, as ceaseless climb 
 Her shaky rings around his stem. 
 The savage, selfish parasite 
 That blooms, but as his glories blight, 
 That drains the life of her support, 
 And in his death pangs finds her sport, 
 Exultant crawls to grasp his crown, 
 Nor heeds his sullen senile frown. 
 
 Tho' for long years his innate force 
 Half animates the living corse, 
 
2532 Vengeance but waits* 
 
 His fateful day arrives at length, 
 And all his beauty, all his strength, 
 Wrapped in her paralyzing bonds, 
 Serve but to lift her gleeful fronds: 
 A leafless skeleton remains, 
 That tediously to Time complains, 
 Who listens, heeds, and points the way 
 To his dead heart for her decay. 
 
 Vengeance but waits. When Justice calls 
 
 " Her cup is full ! " the dead King falls, 
 
 And the fierce parasite that stole 
 
 Her substance from his mould'ring bole, 
 
 Dies on an earth refusing aid 
 
 To wretch, who on her fa v' rite preyed. 
 
 So " Profit" drains the life of States, 
 And so for her grim vengeance waits, 
 The hour when her fierce forces strain 
 All wealth to hold, all power to gain. 
 
 Then cankered Labor pays his debt ! 
 Foul faces, grimed with toil, and sweat, 
 Like spectres from the Hell of want, 
 Their eyes aglow with hatred, haunt 
 The legislative halls, and fill 
 The statutes with their savage will. 
 
 And horny hands of fleshless men 
 Wild surging from foul Labor's den, 
 Dizzy with sudden light, and wrought 
 To frenzy by consuming thought, 
 
Revolution. 233 
 
 With features burnt to adamant 
 
 In the hot furnaces which Cant 
 
 By law had built, and raked, and stoked, 
 
 While Man on Mammon's altar smoked, 
 
 So hard in desperate grimace, 
 
 Each savage, unrelenting face, 
 
 That pity's fingers could not trace 
 
 In all the raving mob, a line 
 
 To tell, " Love dwells here ! this is mine " 
 
 'Round her hacked head on Freedom's pole 
 
 Join in the maddening Carmagnole. 
 
 And gaunt girls whose untoward fate 
 Had been, to never hesitate 
 Between the brothel and the joys 
 Of virtue, for they had no choice. 
 Born victims of venality, 
 Baptized to sensuality, 
 Howl rapture as they prance salute 
 To tittering, naked prostitute, 
 High-throned on outraged Reason's seat, 
 Parading through the crimsoned street, 
 Whose red-cap, flared as tho' Hell's blaze 
 Were fed by their demoniac craze ; . 
 With wrinkled bosoms, never filled 
 By the glad tides, of love, distilled ; 
 With waving arms and clinging hair, 
 And laughs whose hate intoned despair ; 
 And flame-red eyes, whose rolling spheres 
 Remorseless glare thro' grief-baked tears, 
 " 9& iras " shriek, with fury hoarse, 
 Around her quivering, mangled corse. 
 16 
 
234 The grists of the gods. 
 
 For Man's despairing anguished moan 
 Wailing the weight of church and throne, 
 On profit built, by taxes " farmed," 
 Dry-rot by creed, where hell reformed, 
 Rose to such yells the horrent air, 
 Shuddered in Revolution's blare, 
 As if the spirits of all winds 
 Together breaking from their bonds, 
 Joined in a havoc-flooding tide 
 Were howling at their buttressed pride, 
 And with confused, loud clamors rolled, 
 And jarring crash, their drifting gold. 
 
 The invisible and awful might 
 
 Of Justice, furious for Right, 
 
 Long gathering in the thronging cells 
 
 Where squalor, with bleared ignorance dwells. 
 
 Burst from their glooms, to atoms rent 
 
 All Mammon's law and precedent ; 
 
 And Earth, God's altar, reeked with blood 
 
 To avenge the poor upon the proud. 
 
 It did ! aye, justly ! did and will, 
 Man's business on the earth 's to kill 
 Savage or brute that works his ill. 
 Man's business on the earth 's to quell 
 Whatever dares 'gainst Right rebel. 
 
 Shall Labor moan his wasted seeds ? 
 His hoe was made to slaughter weeds ; 4 
 
 Shall he but weep his ravaged hive, 
 While crawling worms upon it thrive? 
 
tenebris Lux. 235 
 
 Shall he not in their jungles slay 
 
 The tigers that upon him prey? 
 
 Does not the Universal Voice 
 
 At the slain tyrant's doom rejoice ? 
 
 Had Nero friend on earth, save sword 
 
 Serf-held to meet his breast, who warred 
 
 In Nature's bowels till her purge 
 
 On dunghill dropped her griping scourge. 
 
 Man's business here 's to conquer guilt, 
 
 War to the knife, and knife to hilt ; 
 
 'Tis Nature's currents energize 
 
 His nerves, her plan to realize. 
 
 Earth, meant for Man thro' men must strain 
 
 Till God's intent rewards her pain. 
 
 While Nature's torrents rend the hill, 
 
 And with its debris, valleys fill, 
 
 She must approve perpetual strife 
 
 Till equal law is equal life ; 
 
 Labor is just, her God to feast, 
 
 On Baal's system, and his priest. 
 
 Justice is mercy. Life demands 
 
 Continuous death at Nature's hands. 
 
 Time 's Nature's leveller. He spreads 
 Earth's frowning hills in fertile meads , 
 The powdered crowns upon his tide 
 His teeth have gnawed from cliffs of pride ; 
 Their shredded, cretinizing crags 
 Form deltas with their lint-scraped rags, 
 Till broad savannah built on fen, 
 Grants equal life to equal men. 
 
236 Brahma. 
 
 Aye ! justly ! The same laws control 
 The bounding ball, and surging soul. 
 Force answers force ; who dares complain 
 That in causation's endless chain, 
 Reaction springs, to equalize 
 The force that in the action lies. 
 
 Nature is Unit. Moral power, 
 
 And physical, alike, in her 
 
 Find origin, and must obey 
 
 The all-brooding, all-pervading Sway. 
 
 Yea ! all the laws of physics find 
 
 Their counterparts in laws of mind. 
 
 For all existent forms of Force 
 
 Spring from one elemental source, 
 
 And co-related, interchange 
 
 Throughout their boundless, circling range. 
 
 The immeasurable Universe 
 
 Has procreate with God, and stirs 
 
 But as his life is blent with hers. , 
 
 The infinite generation pours 
 
 Thro' all that creeps to all that soars, 
 
 And baser shapes in trillions swarm 
 
 Of higher life to evolve a germ. 
 
 In all, thro' all, and over all, 
 
 The embryos struggle at the call 
 
 That Progress thrills thro' Nature's womb, 
 
 "For higher life, yield room ; more room ! " 
 
 When matter into soul 's resolved, 
 With her a higher law 's evolved, 
 
Evolution. 237 
 
 The Immortals rise beyond the scope 
 Of Laws in which the mortal grope ; 
 Soul bound to matter, feels the pain 
 Of ceaseless struggle with her chain, 
 Till law "Not to be eaten ; Eat," 
 In "Live and let live," finds defeat. 
 
 Then the old world of Hatred dies 
 Beneath a new creation's skies ; 
 Life's stream forever upward flows ; 
 Love, limitless in progress glows ; 
 With each step Evolution gains 
 Yet fiercer ardors burn his veins, 
 Until the dust-born souls transcend 
 Material limits, and ascend 
 Thro' Love, to Love's eternal life, 
 And blent with God, aye, aid his strife. 
 Yet in his bosom law-bound lie, 
 In love they live, in hate they die. 
 
 Though at Jerusalem, sown with salt, 
 Sad pity rises in revolt 
 Against the law that gathered all 
 Judaea in her creed-built wall, 
 That pestilence and famine driven 
 By war into their dreadful haven, 
 Might force the mother's cooing mouth 
 To set its hunger-raging tooth 
 Gnawing her baby's bones, to scare 
 The savage Roman with her fare. 
 'Tis vengeful Nature thus englobes 
 The priest and faction driven mobs, 
 
238 Siva. 
 
 And thus agglomerates his bane 
 To fall before progressive Man. 
 As serpents by some instinct crawl, 
 And intertwining form a ball 
 Of striking heads, and writhing tails 
 Whose horror human courage pales, 
 To die the quicker, as his blows 
 Crash thro' his venom-spurting foes. 
 
 Yet Reason sees, that Love alone 
 Is by their doom, to mankind shown. 
 Tho' the whole race whose creed is Hate, 
 Who for their tribe dare arrogate 
 Superior place in Nature's scheme, 
 And as God's favorites, Love blaspheme, 
 Had vanished from the world they curse 
 With their insatiate, gaping purse. 
 For in each Jew, man-hater died, 
 Who knew no crime in fratricide. 
 His horrible, revolting faith, 
 Hoped the world's empire, and the death 
 Of every alien to the creed 
 Inherited by Abraham's seed. 
 
 Close-coiling in their narrow fane, 
 Warming each other in their den, 
 But to the human race as cold 
 As their curst temple's plated gold, 
 'Twas loving Justice swept the nest 
 Of vipers, who their hatred hissed 
 At Human Brotherhood, and flung 
 Their carcasses o'er earth as dung. 
 
Vishnu. 239 
 
 The race has gained, if barren earth 
 So fertilized, yields nobler birth. 
 Aye ! if one loving germ is born 
 From that abhorrent putrid scorn ; 
 Tho' Siva, with Csesarean knife, 
 Slashed pitiless, for gasping life. 
 
 'Twas born ! for earth has seen a child, 
 
 Man-grown, yet gentle, trustful, mild, 
 
 As when he cooed to lullaby 
 
 Upon his mother's dancing knee ; 
 
 Who lay at Nature's breast to hear 
 
 In her warm heart sweet currents stir, 
 
 Fed on the nectar they distilled, 
 
 And knew himself with her one-willed ; 
 
 As Reason saw Love's balsams drip 
 
 On every wound her kissing lip 
 
 Grew moist to heal, nor cared what wrong 
 
 A stalk had pierced, a bloom had stung. 
 
 Her lesson learned, his gentle eyes 
 
 Glanced thro' all shams, pierced all disguise, 
 
 For man stands naked, in his skin, 
 
 To him who claims with Nature kin. 
 
 A turgid body, void of grace, 
 
 A brutish form, and bestial face, 
 
 Nature exacts from life as price 
 
 Of her debasement, when a vice 
 
 The fool thinks hid, beyond her ken, 
 
 Is blazoned on his front, that men 
 
 By instinct warned, may know and shun 
 
 The glutton, drunkard, libertine. 
 
240 Man could not be nearer God. 
 
 Nor cloth of gold, nor thickest frieze 
 
 From him can hide a soul's disease, 
 
 Who reads the base hieroglyph 
 
 Vice graves upon a wicked life, 
 
 As erst Champollion read the stones 
 
 Whose dead tongues told of vanished thrones. 
 
 If groping reason scarce can err 
 
 With alphabet of Lavater, 
 
 Shall he not read who has the sense 
 
 Of purity and innocence ? 
 
 An evolution aye refused 
 
 When Nature is by life abused, 
 
 Whose nerves repulsion's currents thrill 
 
 To emanating wrong, and chill 
 
 At gelid vapors felt in air, 
 
 As Crime's breath floats on Anger's stare. 
 
 Lawyer, and scribe, priest, pharisee, 
 
 Then felt the same antipathy 
 
 For Nature's pupil, that they still 
 
 To her close questioner reveal. 
 
 Pride shrank before his quiet eyes 
 
 And knew his own insanities. 
 
 Lust, Greed, Hypocrisy, all vice 
 
 Glared at its shame, and knew its price, 
 
 And naked, blotched, and swollen girned 
 
 At him who hated, while he yearned. 
 
 To him the Temple's barbarous gold 
 
 Thick-plated, but revealed its mould. 
 
 The gorgeous breast-plate's mystic name 
 
 To his clear sight betrayed the flame 
 
 Of avarice in the griping heart 
 
 That tolled the sacrificial mart. 
 
The birth of the Socialist. 241 
 
 The sinner, publican, or whore, 
 
 He saw, with cleaner hands, adore, 
 
 Than prototypes of those who shrill 
 
 Curses at human progress, while 
 
 They counterfeit God's signature, 
 
 And peddle passes to the shore 
 
 Of the Hereafter, promising 
 
 To Man, when struck by Azrael's wing, 
 
 His life-distorted soul shall rise, 
 
 White-robed, and pure, to Paradise, 
 
 Escaping Justice, satisfied 
 
 That Man may live, since God has died. 
 
 'Twas born, a genius-kindled soul 
 
 To dust-sprung Man revealed his goal ; 
 
 For evoluting Nature pressed 
 
 Again a last born to her breast 
 
 The child, man-grown, the Socialist. 
 
 The billowy multitude lay still 
 
 To hear Love's song his rapture trill 
 
 From Reason's lyre, by heart attuned, 
 
 And knew their King, by Nature throned. 
 
 A towel, as his sceptre, dried 
 
 His brethrens' feet, and terrified 
 
 Ignoble, Slave-demanding pride, 
 
 The source of human ills confessed, 
 
 As parasites the earth oppressed, 
 
 He flung the cuckoo from the nest, 
 
 Where it devoured the toil-won food 
 
 She garnered for her starving brood ; 
 
 And in his empire, all men fed 
 
 On equal wine, and equal bread. 
 
242 Jesus, a model: a "Christ" inimitable. 
 
 Priests could not comprehend the light 
 That quenched their altar-fires, nor Might 
 The breathing force could understand 
 Which, for Love's domination planned. 
 So lest his brethren hold debate 
 How unweaned Nature emulate, 
 Whose kiss would crime annihilate, 
 They shrine a life in mysteries, 
 And relegate him to the skies ; 
 Exclude him, who alone was man 
 From dwarfed humanity, and plan 
 An altar, where he lies, supine, 
 A wasted power, a man divine, 
 Alms-begging for a tawdry shrine ; 
 And imitating men are awed 
 By an inimitable God. 
 
 Oh! true! This Love-evolving earth, 
 A million times has hailed its birth. 
 The dual-sexed, its forceful blood- 
 Its savage strength, by milk subdued. 
 The man with paps, whose bosom drains 
 With brimming glands his pulsing veins ; 
 Man with the instincts Nature meant 
 To adorn her last development ; 
 With woman's heart, and virile brain, 
 JZarth's Ultimate. All loving man. 
 
 Bleating and brave : the tiger's will 
 Thro' lamb's eyes softened as they fill 
 With pity, while the strong-nerved Might 
 Relentless hews its path to Right. 
 
Thomas Paine. 243 
 
 Nature's aristocrat, whose health 
 Of mind and body is his wealth. 
 Equal to him, or gems or flint, 
 His value 's stamped in Nature's mint ; 
 The pregnant thought his usury, 
 The barren creed, his poverty. 
 Instinctive ruler, for he saw, 
 While thro' the labyrinths of law 
 His groping fellows have no thread, 
 And perish, if they spurn his lead. 
 
 Wherever Man gropes to the day, 
 
 His clarion voice proclaims the way ; 
 
 Tho' rabid loyalist may howl, 
 
 Tory shriek ''Treason!" bigot scow], 
 
 The mass, by Nature's eloquence, 
 
 Curt-phrased, brim-full of " Common sense, 1 
 
 Aroused to struggle, set in van 
 
 The Apostle of the " Rights of Man ;" 
 
 And, for his tongue has found the word 
 
 They waited for, a jarring herd 
 
 Of quarrelling colonies combine, 
 
 And, Nation born, proves Paine divine. 
 
 Aye ! Earth has borne her millionth son 
 Womb- fitted for his turf-built throne ; 
 To see them fed on paupers' broth, 
 Emaciate, dying, nursed by sloth. 
 Has seen her swaddled king appear, 
 To faint in luxury's atmosphere, 
 On Plutus' bread and Laureate's wine, 
 Abhorred of Nature, peak and pine ; 
 
244 Fallen from their high estate. 
 
 And laughter-frightened, puling shrink 
 
 From light flared by his Reason's link ; 
 
 Nay ! drop it, and from out his dark 
 
 Shriek angry hatred of the spark ; 
 
 Abjure his kin to Man, abjure 
 
 The instinct in which dwelt his power, 
 
 And use his ashy brain to gloom 
 
 His brethren's life with glory's plume, 
 
 Or force his artist fingers paint 
 
 For adoration, mildewed saint. 
 
 So Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, Burke, 
 
 Of Pautisocracy grew irk, 
 
 When age and power had chilled the ruth 
 
 Stilled in the brimming breasts of youth. 
 
 As senile limbs worn eye-sight drag 
 
 Boy's love to see, and see a hag, 
 
 Whom, had they wed, with each decade 
 
 A bloom were born would never fade. 
 
 A myriad Jesus embryos 
 The fecund earth each age bestows, 
 Bedews her cheeks with crimson tears, 
 To see her instinct-strangled heirs 
 Show atavism, and cast down, 
 Ambition taught, her olive crown, 
 That, bloody laurels may o'erspread 
 His bald, unsightly, Caesar head. 
 
 The child feels kin and hugs the lamb, 
 The man waits for a mutton-ham, 
 The child 's a Socialist, O ! why, 
 As intellect swells, must instinct die ! 
 
Immaculate Conception. 245 
 
 Twas born ! for on that dunghill blooms 
 A rose that all the world perfumes ; 
 The "Sermon on the Mount," compiled 
 By Nature's loving, trusting child, 
 Still scatters fragrance, spite the weeds 
 Of hateful and malarious creeds, 
 Which hide its beauty, claim its scent, 
 Tho' each and all are redolent 
 Of vilest odors, which they shed 
 On its limp leaves, and drooping head ; 
 As Faith dwarfs Reason to believe 
 Womb could be virgin, and conceive, 
 Till idiot, in the gloom he 's lost 
 Of adumbrating Holy Ghost, 
 And plants a wonder-worker where 
 A man once knelt in hopeless prayer ; 
 Yea ! with his resurrect body stalks 
 Across an earth its odor shocks. 
 
 The highest life that treads the soil 
 
 Of this green world is thinking Toil, 
 
 Which blasts the rock, or delves the mine, 
 
 Uproots the forest, drives the train, 
 
 Shapes serving iron, or speeds the share, 
 
 Or harness fits on viewless air, 
 
 Which matter fills with mind to win 
 
 Recruit for Labor in machine, 
 
 Or soil persuades, against its will 
 
 His barns with greater yield, to fill. 
 
 Which feeds the child with power, and trains 
 
 For use his muscles or his brains, 
 
 Or with mind's lever, whirls the press 
 
246 ' Twixt High and Low. 
 
 Which wakens force that mocks duress. 
 That, kin to Nature, feels the thought 
 Of energy, that in her wrought 
 Her sempiternal age, to hoard 
 Her vigor, waiting for her lord, 
 And lays close to her throbbing heart, 
 Love quickened ear, till she impart 
 Her open secret, how restore 
 To Man for use power from its ore ; 
 How catch Proteus and compel 
 The unwilling, hiding God to tell 
 His tireless questioner how to lock 
 In permanence the transmuting shock, 
 Envolved in opening new course 
 For changing, but persistent force 
 And teach the inventor how to chain 
 The soul of Nature, Slave of Man, 
 Who semi-conscious of her heir, 
 Is instinct-driven to prepare 
 The swaddling clothes of nobler birth, 
 Now in the womb of pregnant earth. 
 
 The lowest type of cognate Man, 
 Is he, whose scheming selfish brain 
 Glows like a furnace in the flame 
 Of burning lust for gold, or fame ; 
 Who struts the earth in human shape, 
 With instincts of the soulless ape, 
 That agile, climbs the bearing tree, 
 Long trained by patient industry, 
 And revels on its ruddy fruit, 
 While Labor digs and feeds its root ; 
 
There is no Peace. 247 
 
 Or rat-like gnaws his secret road 
 To Nature's wage, in bin bestowed, 
 And riots in his filthy nest 
 Upon his ill-got, golden feast, 
 Leaving its owner spoiled and bare 
 For all his toil and watchful care. 
 
 Shall apes that filch, and rats that gnaw, 
 Their plunder hold by creed and law ? 
 On Labor's harvest shall they prowl 
 Forever, shielded by the cowl, 
 Proving Society 's undone 
 If Man breeds cats, or points a gun ? 
 
 'Twixt them and Toil, how compromise 
 The eternal fight that dates its rise 
 When gasping Chaos felt the might 
 Of Infinite Love in flooding light. 
 That thro' the universe arrays 
 Reaction's gloom 'gainst Progress' blaze. 
 That rages thro' the pulsing earth 
 Whose subterranean fires pour dearth 
 In lava floods on fertile plain, 
 Whose blasted blooms must smile again. 
 In which the stately tree but falls, 
 Conquered by parasitic coils, 
 That in its mouldering dust may root 
 A nobler stem with richer fruit. , 
 That fills the circumambient air 
 With shrieks of triumph, sobs of prayer, 
 As all defend and all attack 
 While Nature spreads symposiac, 
 
248 Dii laboribus omnia vendunt. 
 
 And laughs to see the endless gain 
 O'er brutal strength, of jelly brain. 
 Forever, from each contest, won, 
 Another struggle is begun, 
 As battle-cries continuous roll 
 O'er broad'ning field, the human soul, 
 Rent, torn and anguished by debate 
 'Twixt Creed and Reason, Love and Hate. 
 
 Nature is unit ; endless feud 
 Between the evil and the good, 
 Between the upright and the base, 
 'Twixt Right and Might can never cease. 
 Until mankind in wisdom frame 
 The law that can Ambition tame. 
 
 By what agreement such foes bind 
 
 As the palled palate and starved mind, 
 
 Augustus could not breathe if Rome, 
 
 Among her millions, gave a home 
 
 To Ovid, so the poet's tongue 
 
 Among barbarians trilled his song. 
 
 So Seneca for Nero oped 
 
 His wrinkled veins ; the slow blood dropped 
 
 Reluctant, till a life escaped, 
 
 By love perfumed, by wisdom shaped. ' 
 
 So friend-surrounded Socrates 
 
 Smiled, drank his cup, and closed his eyes 
 
 For rage-ruled Athens, who in dust 
 
 Bewailed her crime, and savage, thrust 
 
 To Hades, to console his shade, 
 
 The demagogues her wrath obeyed. 
 
G-enius gets more kicks than ha'pence. 249 
 
 So Jesus for Caiaphas felt 
 The doom of shame, and meed of guilt, 
 While, with throats still hosanna-hoarse, 
 The mob of Jewry dragged the curse 
 Of murdered Love upon their heads 
 Still 'fyling their thief-breeding beds ; 
 For Nature 's parricide, the priest 
 Poisoned their blood, when on her breast 
 He struck her child ; their venomed hearts 
 Dead to remorse, yet feel its smarts, 
 And must as long as they abjure 
 The gospel that he preached the poor. 
 So Scotch precentors in Dundee, 
 Ravished by Sternhold's psalmody, 
 Scowled Nature's poet from the street, 
 Now hallowed by his staggering feet, 
 Whose maudlin song, or tavern stave, 
 Outlives their church, outlasts their pave. 
 Whose wit shall " Holy Will" embalm 
 While Scotland's God knows how to damn. 
 Whose songs will feed delight till rhyme 
 Of music 's lost in Heaven's chime. 
 
 Before them famine, with them fear, 
 Calhoun's ghost thundering in their rear, 
 Even now our swarthy citizens 
 In headlong haste escape the dens, 
 Where Slavery scotched, but waits the time, 
 When, coated by ophidian slime, 
 Enwrapped and crushed in coiling law, 
 Manhood shall glut his craving maw. 
 
250 Pliilosophasters. 
 
 Now Denslow, Greed's Evangelist, 
 Harangues Philosophasters, unhissed, 
 Ore rotundo, quod, dixit 
 Philosophiam iiescivit. 
 Explaining how the fisherman, 
 Who broke the box that Solomon 
 Had sealed the Genius in, and saw 
 His mist take form and substance, draw 
 The fleecy clouds around his head, 
 While earth to centre felt his tread 
 Could legislate his width and height 
 Again to incantated plight. 
 
 To frame the law he 'd buy the vote. 
 An X apiece he thinks would do 't. 
 That Jacob here might drive a trade 
 With hungry Esau, and persuade 
 His birth-right from the hairy arms 
 Whose ballot philosoph' alarms, 
 Perhaps he could ; to execute ; 
 That cost a Babbage can't compute. 
 
 Philosophy would guide a force 
 
 Which, born of Nature, must have course. 
 
 Philosophasters aye augment 
 
 By new restrictions, discontent. 
 
 They 're damnably extravagant. 
 
 For Ignorance is unanimous. 
 When herded close, 'tis credulous, 
 Submissive to its shepherd's beck, 
 And proud to feel upon its neck 
 
The "Happy Family" 251 
 
 Its collar, ribbon-wrapped, which leads 
 It, bleating, to the arid meads, 
 Where, pastured on the waste, it starves, 
 Fenced from its master's fat preserves. 
 
 But, when credulity 's destroyed 
 
 In minds where reason ne'er employed 
 
 A pen or tongue to teach it right, 
 
 It grows incarnate appetite. 
 
 As wolves, unanimous, its pack 
 
 One-throated howls upon the track 
 
 Where Wealth, in luxury misspent, 
 
 Has left its wage-polluted scent : 
 
 One thought in each, consumed by thirst. 
 
 The quarry caught, to be the first 
 
 To feel his smoking muzzle bore, 
 
 Blood-snorting, to the victim's core. 
 
 Like Barnum's " Happy Family " fed, 
 
 Wealth safely pats its gorgon head, 
 
 As dozing lazily it blinks 
 
 Digesting, careless of its stinks. 
 
 Then, as in Rome, the mob's brute throats 
 
 To swallow bread will vomit votes. 
 
 Let Hunger get within the den, 
 
 The Happy Family acts as men 
 
 Will do when such philosopher 
 
 As Denslow is their lawgiver. 
 
 The anaconda hugs the goat, 
 
 The sheep slips down the tiger's throat, 
 
 While parrots scream, the monkeys pluck, 
 
 The lap-dog dines upon the duck, 
 
252 The "Happy Family" hungry. 
 
 The cat's paw 's in the aquarium, 
 By Heaven ! the den is Christendom ! 
 The Cage is Law, the Statutes, bars, 
 And appetite incessant wars. 
 
 To-morrow come no life is there 
 Except the tiger, and his glare 
 Burns from his prison, as his claws 
 Tear at the rattling, creaking bars. 
 Why even the boa, with Jew head 
 And Sheriff's coils, his rage has sped. 
 Don't go again ! his food 's his foe, 
 The man who lived upon the show. 
 He 's broke the legal cage of dearth ; 
 Hunger 's the strongest force of earth. 
 
 Philosophasters ! are you sage 
 Forever tinkering at the cage 
 Where Man lies fetter-bound ? Are you 
 Contented with that narrow view 
 That knows no government but Force, 
 The whip and chain its sole resource ? 
 
 Among the blind, the one-eyed 's king, 
 But why should acclamations ring 
 For Denslow's goggles, they can't see 
 Man's only hope 's Fraternity, 
 All forms he 's tried of government, 
 Love must have his experiment. 
 
 Soap-boiler's sons, and sires of drones, 
 Grand-sires of beggars, when the loans 
 
Cost of Schools. 253 
 
 You've pouched from Toil, your spendthrift race, 
 
 Repays to Man, and takes its place 
 
 Again at ladder-foot, to climb 
 
 Again to wealth, thro' sweat and grime 
 
 What blue blood can Chicago boast 
 
 Dribbling through brains by ages massed 
 
 In dismal solitude above 
 
 The plain, where gold is more than love ; 
 
 Where Stocks with Castles copulate, 
 
 Engendering peers to guide the State ; 
 
 That in earth's breaking dawn you dream 
 
 Of still enforcing Nimrod's scheme ; 
 
 That you begin to count the cost 
 
 Of crime's prevention, and exhaust 
 
 Logic to prove that ignorance 
 
 Is not the worst extravagance. 
 
 What cost is this, which, even debate 
 
 Excites your spleen, ye mushroom great. 
 
 'Tis cost of peace, evolved from strife ; 
 
 'Tis cost of death, subdued by life ; 
 
 'Tis the racked State's repairing dock ; 
 
 The light that shines on Treason's rock ; 
 
 The hopes of Time, and Freedom's soul 
 
 Are nourished by the paltry dole. 
 
 The family, with its happy hearth, 
 
 The kettle's hum, and baby's mirth, 
 
 The mother's fine economy, 
 
 The father's strict sobriety, 
 
 The cheerful labor of the son, 
 
 The daughter's marriage-loosened zone, 
 
 These are the things appraised, when fools 
 
 Babble about the cost of schools. 
 
254 Education cheaper than Ignorance. 
 
 A tax that forced on every child 
 Running at large, unkempt, and wild, 
 Good schooling and an honest trade, 
 Would cost far less than this brigade, 
 Which, gutter-fed and alley- trained, 
 Is yearly to Crime's army drained. 
 Less if the quarrelsome flag that floats 
 Above their heads were shaped as coats, 
 To shield and warm the frozen imp 
 Who'll for his scrawny sister pimp, 
 In hope to see, before him thrown 
 From lecher's hand a half-picked bone ; 
 Less if the spoon of the dry nurse 
 Replaced the club of police force, 
 And Order's stalwart champion quelled 
 The Cockatrice ere it unshelled. 
 
 Life 's education. All his days 
 
 Man goes to school, and wealth defrays 
 
 Despite his will, the cost to rear 
 
 A burglar, or an engineer. 
 
 Each child is a donation given 
 
 To earth to rear for profit ; Heaven 
 
 Bestows the boon, and Heaven exacts 
 
 With usury, if refused, the tax ; 
 
 And children grown to pillagers 
 
 Are but collecting Heaven's arrears. 
 
 Each child 's a field, whose golden grain 
 
 Will ripen under sun and rain ; 
 
 If education but manure 
 
 The soil, behold, the harvest 's sure. 
 
Baal worship. 255 
 
 Do n't cultivate, the soil must yield, 
 Fungi and weeds exhaust the field, 
 No tax will make it fertile then 
 Till deluged by the blood of men. 
 
 The child 's the State's. No father dare 
 
 Claim title to his law-made heir. 
 
 Father may toil, and mother save, 
 
 The State can draft, he heirs a grave. 
 
 All men have interest in each 
 
 Beyond the family ; all must teach. 
 
 All do. Each generation feels 
 
 Its predecessor's scars and weals. 
 
 If it can understand their cause, 
 
 That 's progress. If it can't, old laws 
 
 Still torture, and it feels in turn 
 
 The same weals pain, the same scars burn. 
 
 Now, as of old, the Son, thro' fire 
 Must pass if governed by his Sire. 
 He must outgrow his narrow creed, 
 Must spurn his gospel, tear his deed ; 
 For Nature of an outrage 'plains, 
 Wherever skulls with smaller brains 
 Than those of their progenitors 
 Are worn by sons of peers or boors. 
 
 O ! impious, wasteful Avarice ! 
 Your thin lips haggle at the price 
 Of education, tho' the dole 
 
256 How Pride gets a fall. 
 
 That law awarded Common-School, 
 Lifted your flag from out the dust, 
 And stamps your coin " In God we trust " ! 
 In bounty-jumpers find your troops, 
 When Freedom next with Serfdom copes, ' 
 If breeding Man 's too great expense, 
 If schooling is extravagance. 
 
 Bewail Alaric's plundered Rome. 
 You, Miser ! breed your Huns at home. 
 Hark ! now their widening columns tramp, 
 Till the whole country is a camp, 
 And every night, War's reddened sky 
 Lights the foot-prints of Anarchy. 
 
 You, straddling an end owned by rank, 
 Upon this " Social System's" plank, 
 Soar upward on its grim see-saw. 
 
 Yet cannot see that Nature's law 
 
 i 
 
 Drops poor men just as low in mire 
 As you 're high balanced in the air, 
 You think your seat secure, and scoff 
 Their rights: What if they all get off? 
 
 In Rome they did. Jove I how you begged, 
 
 When robbed and angry Labor leagued, 
 
 Set wife and child upon his cart 
 
 And fled the debtor-slaving mart. 
 
 What was the palace worth to keep, 
 
 If he who owned it had to sweep ? 
 
 The acres, if patrician hands 
 
 Must hold the plow and turn the lands ? 
 
The Exodus Hegira. 257 
 
 Repentance earned existence when 
 
 Placated slaves returned as men. 
 
 All debts she cancelled ! Tribune sneered, 
 
 And lo ! a statute disappeared. 
 
 With callous hands and feet unshod, 
 
 Dictator in her forum stood, 
 
 And Cincinnatus' eye could scan 
 
 The field as large that fed a man. 
 
 Labor was Master, till Greed trained 
 
 A mob, and new dominion gained. 
 
 Marius then ! and Sylla ! what 
 
 Better than plebs', patricians' lot? 
 
 Now Capital makes piteous mouth, 
 As Labor skurries from the South, 
 For every inch of land that grew 
 A crop, stirred by his dragging hoe, 
 Is worthless as it was when Penn's 
 Trunk -full of beads was recompense 
 For all the leagues that Greed could ask, 
 When profit wore a Quaker's mask. 
 
 Ah ! Southern Statesmen, it appears 
 Your whites can't all be brigadiers. 
 That cause is palpable. Discuss 
 Mode to remeed the Exodus, 
 Else 'tis Hegira. They'll return 
 Despite all law, the men who earn 
 Must over sloth and folly rule, 
 When they have passed a term at school. 
 The teacher's rod is heavy, well, 
 The sooner they will learn to spell ! 
 
258 Victory ! or Death ! 
 
 Your children, beggared by your pride, 
 Will yet in Negro cabins hide. 
 Be wise, a Cincinnatus' farm 
 For every serf 's the only charm 
 Can keep him quiet on the plank, 
 Where his abasement makes your rank ; 
 Come down a little ; let him rise ; 
 A brevet 's no great sacrifice ; 
 Let brigadiers be colonels, then 
 Let serfs be privates and be men. 
 You can't ; then tumble, reason deaf, 
 For, by the Gods, they 're getting off. 
 
 Ah ! Power cannot be quiet. Why ? 
 Because it must or grow or die. 
 He cannot on his limits tread 
 Till cancer roots learn not to spread. 
 Until the serpent's poisoned gland 
 Supplies no death to hate's demand. 
 And Labor, lord of earth, can't reign 
 Till Love prevades his whole domain. 
 
 But fools for foes plait olive wreath, 
 Whose war cry 's " Victory or death ! " 
 Freedom is won by force alone. 
 No moral power upsets a throne 
 Which usury has based and built 
 On legal fraud and lawful guilt. 
 Even when the thing is red with rust 
 To shove it over, makes a dust 
 Strangling the lever's rage, applied 
 To rend its frayed, decaying pride. 
 
Samson's riddle. 259 
 
 A white flag but protects a spy, 
 
 For God has sworn that Greed must die ; 
 
 Out of the eater comes forth meat, 
 
 Out of the strong- comes forth the sweet. 
 
 Crimson 's the color Nature owns 
 
 As Freedom's sun on mankind dawns, 
 
 All debts are paid by Death. Remorse 
 
 Ne'er shuddered at a miser's corse. 
 
 Aye ! Man himself must sacrifice, 
 From death alone new life can rise, 
 Man-haters must find earth their tomb, 
 Ere the man-lover opes her womb. 
 Destruction's red and reckless hand 
 Must cast o'er Mammon governed land 
 The living seeds, in blood-fed soil, 
 Whence springs the enfranchisement of Toil. 
 For Mammon's law, like Persia's, can 
 But be repealed in blood of Man. 
 Carnage must slake his rage-parched throat, 
 And o'er unnumbered corses gloat, 
 Gaunt Famine's horny eye must glare 
 O'er fields nntilled, and pastures bare, 
 And Fire's hot tongues must lick the walls 
 Whence Mammon's prayers, Muezzin bawls, 
 Ere a fraternal race can laugh 
 As Freedom writes his epitaph. 
 
 But for abuses Power exists ; 
 But by abuses Power resists 
 The life that progress would impart, 
 Reaching the reason thro' the heart. 
 
260 Liberty its natural limits. 
 
 He, with a lying logic, shields 
 
 His wasting theft of Labor's fields, * 
 
 And fortifies his brazen guilt, 
 
 By economic system built 
 
 And based on crime, its corner stone. 
 
 Crime by whose deed, the few can own 
 
 What God gave all, what all must have, 
 
 Or love must die in Man, the slave, 
 
 As love has died in him whose fraud 
 
 Contests the title of his God. 
 
 The moral progress of the race 
 Consists in growing power to trace 
 The laws of conduct, and to teach 
 How all men should behave to each ; 
 To know that each man's liberty 
 To enjoy his likes, Society 
 Can claim no right to contravene, 
 Save where the effect is plainly seen 
 Upon another life to trend, 
 Whose equal right it must defend. 
 
 If any portion of the earth 
 
 Is held by righteous deed ; if birth 
 
 Can give to one exclusive deed ; 
 
 Such law must work another's shame ; 
 
 For if Earth's surface is controlled 
 
 By some, all others may be told, 
 
 With equity, that in a world 
 
 They 're born, from which they should be hurled 
 
 Out into space, as trespassers 
 
 On those whose title law prefers. 
 
The doctrines of devils. , 261 
 
 Political Economy 
 *Which in "Demand begets Supply," 
 The "Axiom" finds which markets Man, 
 And puts a price on brawn and brain, 
 Is natural growth of "Private Right," 
 A problem solved in Egypt's blight, 
 By Joseph in that dreary time, 
 When first the Jew taught Pharaoh crime ; 
 Then her heaped wealth, by taxes made, 
 For safety and protection paid, 
 Like "Charter Oak" insurance funds, 
 Clutched by administering hands, 
 Became his private property, 
 Who, of the coffer, held the key, 
 And, by chaste Joseph's cunning greed 
 Bought Labor's tyrant of his need. 
 
 'Twas then demand begat supply, 
 Hunger must part with land or die, 
 That sold, intruder he became, 
 And trespasser on Pharaoh's " claim." 
 The landless must beget a slave, 
 And rent, at market price, a grave. 
 
 Still the broad Nile brought annual flood 
 To Toil of fertilizing mud, 
 Nor recked who harvested his gift, 
 Who was enriched, or who bereft, 
 Tho' homeless Labor's shivering ranks 
 Prayed, cursed, and died upon his banks. 
 For Nature's God cares naught for pelf, 
 Egypt must slave, or right herself. 
 
262 Demand and Supply. 
 
 Again demand begat supply, 
 For Man revolts in slavery, 
 Tyrants need priests who teach a Hell 
 To punish slaves, who dare rebel. 
 With secrecy, and sorcery, 
 With incense muttered mystery, 
 With awe inspiring tonsured skulls, 
 With Gods of crocodiles and bulls, 
 With sound-refracting oracles, 
 They came, and happy Pharaoh saw 
 Congeeing serfs submit to law. 
 
 Again demand begat supply 
 
 For Pharaoh himself must die, 
 
 His corse, mal-odorous must be hid, 
 
 So Toil supplied a p}^ramid 
 
 That from its top, his perching soul 
 
 Might view the lands of his control, 
 
 Until his mummy's wakened brain 
 
 Felt his glad spirit stir again. 
 
 His slaves, by their dull instincts doomed 
 
 To cling to life, by millions swarmed 
 
 To rear fit tomb for rotting gold, 
 
 The product of their toils behold ! 
 
 A monstrous quarry on the ground, 
 
 An excavation where 't was found, 
 
 The slaves that reared these sepulchres 
 Of wasted Labor, left as heirs 
 A race with aspirations crushed, 
 Deca}ang thro' long centuries, cursed 
 By every form of infinite wrong 
 
Labor vincit omnia. 263 
 
 The weak can suffer from the strong, 
 Beyond the reach of progress, where 
 Life has no hope, death no despair. 
 
 If Labor could have stood upon 
 
 The boundless wealth from earth he won ; 
 
 Had it been used as God designed 
 
 To strengthen muscle, broaden mind ; 
 
 Who can set limits to his gain, 
 
 In power of body, force of brain. 
 
 He might within his heart enthrall 
 
 The full vitality of soul, 
 
 And at the fount of ceaseless growth 
 
 Might quaff the stream of endless youth. 
 
 Tongue has no language can unfold 
 
 The glories of a conquered world ^ 
 
 With wisdom and invention fraught, 
 
 Obedient to human thought. 
 
 But if, to-day, on earth Man stood 
 Naked, unsheltered, wanting food, 
 And all the glories of all lands 
 Were shrouded in the drifting sands, 
 A generation could replace 
 All wealth existent on her face, 
 Which for ten thousand years of pain 
 Rewards his toil, to prove his bane. 
 And he, half-fed, a shivering wretch, 
 Has not vitality to reach 
 Even half the years of natural life ; 
 So torn and wounded in the strife 
 He wages for existence, while 
 
264 Sisyphus in overalls. 
 
 - 
 
 With instincts crushed, he grows more vile, 
 For greed has poisoned at their source 
 The springs of Nature's vital force. 
 
 Of all the food the waters yield, 
 Of all the harvests of the field, 
 He has not year's supply in store 
 To keep gaunt famine from his door. 
 Grim Power still bulletins his joy, 
 As heroes, uniformed, destroy 
 The customers who 're clothed and fed 
 By Labor's webs and Labor's bread 
 The cabins where he weakling cowers, 
 And worn and wasted, life endures, 
 While sleepless Usury counts her gains, 
 And aggregates what War disdains. 
 
 Of all Toil's earnings this shred shows 
 For myriad years of myriad woes, 
 And this, not his, it but gives force 
 To shame, by competition's curse. 
 To cumulated wealth bestows 
 New riches, earned by what it owes ; 
 That Capital may keep his dross 
 Regardless of his neighbor's loss, 
 While Toilers his just tax endure, 
 And poor men must support the poor. 
 
 Supplies exist, but for demand, 
 
 So cries the Sage, who owns the land. 
 
 And proves it by their misery t 
 
 Who starve when lacking gold to buy. 
 
Deadheads Conductors. 265 
 
 
 
 ' Tis false. Supply is limited 
 
 But by the cost of toil and seed. 
 
 So Nature, Law gives increment 
 
 To cost, by every dollar spent 
 
 To buy or hire a field to till, 
 
 To place a house, or seat a mill ; 
 
 Destroys the equilibriums 
 
 'Twixt Toil that reaps, Toil that consumes, 
 
 Creates, to God's astonishment, 
 
 A class of men who live on rent, 
 
 Which from both sides its "profit" cheats, 
 
 From what Toil earns, and what he eats, 
 
 Who claim free rides around the sun 
 
 Upon a planet that they own ; 
 
 Aye! cjaim to guide its 'wildered course 
 
 Through frightened skies, while discord hoarse 
 
 Screams thro' the music of the spheres 
 
 The burden of earth's maudlin tears. 
 
 This wagon's creaking neer will cease 
 While its fifth wheel gets all the grease. 
 For all contention has one source 
 All struggle is 'twixt love and force, 
 'Twixt rights of Man, and claims of Kings, 
 Earth with perpetual discord rings. 
 
 O ! 'Tis demand begets supply, 
 Demand of Love is ecstacy ; 
 Of all Ambition, tyranny ; 
 Of Nature, pure democracy ; 
 Of praying Faith, Theocracy ; 
 Of Reason, Pantisocracy. 
 18 
 
266 Agrarian Laws demanded. 
 
 'Tis Axiom ! Of Private Right 
 The Upas grows, its soil to blight, 
 To spread Miasma thro' the air, 
 To prove that Hate demands Despair, 
 While bony eyeless sockets glare 
 At their festooned, proud murderer. 
 
 Nature is Unit, the same root 
 Bears want and gluttony its fruit. 
 There ! Brothers ! let your axes fall, 
 And hew the landlord from the soil ; 
 Uproot him here, before his state 
 By sufferance has grown so great, 
 That when demand begets supply 
 Of sheep or cattle, Man must die. 
 
 By England's law your lands are held 
 
 The absolute fee is bought and sold, 
 
 Here in the landlord's bosom lurks 
 
 The soul of England's landed sharks ; 
 
 Your judges precedents revere 
 
 Of men who crawled to office there 
 
 By life-long pandering to caste, 
 
 Which there all land and wealth has massed ; 
 
 Her crimes your coming woes foretell, 
 
 Her system hence you must expel ; 
 
 Aid Nature on her painful road 
 
 Exalt the base, subdue the proud, 
 
 And force equality on Fate, 
 
 Till he can make nor low nor great ; 
 
 Revolt ! or pass from land exiled, 
 
 A craven's name to pauper child. 
 
Shylock ats Antonio reversed. 26' 
 
 On private right, see Shylock stand, 
 
 To claim the forfeit in his bond. 
 
 Your courts the " the pound of flesh " concede 
 
 And consequence find in the deed. 
 
 The "pound" reads, "more or less" in law 
 
 When chancery cures the contract's flaw. 
 
 The right to cut, the blood condones, 
 
 Each has all power o'er what he owns. 
 
 He has ! and Shylock's justice frets 
 To see Man saddle gold with debts ; 
 To numerous asylums debt, 
 To deaf, dumb, blind, and idiot. 
 Debt of expense the insane to rule 
 Debt of the poor-house, debt of school, 
 Ah! that debt grinds, and Mammon sets 
 Your untaught children in the streets, 
 And steals their funds to educate 
 The coming masters of the State . 
 For in each debt, he sees, confest 
 An egg in Restitution's nest 
 Slowly but surely hatching brood, 
 Which he would addle if he could. 
 
 For Mammon feels in all these claims, 
 
 Your vote by law extorting alms, 
 
 And starves your schools, your best defence 
 
 'Gainst his ally, your Ignorance. 
 
 Let him kill them, and trespass boards 
 
 Will warn from earth the unflanneled hordes 
 
 Who spring from Labor's straw to stand 
 
 " Supply for which there 's no demand," 
 
268 Surplus souls ! 
 
 Trespassing tramps upon his land 
 
 [Even now if they dare ask for bread 
 
 He points the jail, where crime is fed,] 
 
 And legislation will approve, 
 
 As Mai thus howls the crime of Love ! 
 
 England no manhood suffrage knows, 
 Mammon on Labor there bestows 
 The murderous chartered burial club, 
 Whose shillings sooth the mother's sob, 
 While poor-house guardians gladly meet 
 The starved babe's corse out buying meat. 
 
 Aye ! axiom 'tis, if Private Right 
 
 By gold and lands his pains requite, 
 
 Who as a human spider plies 
 
 His web, to catch his human flies. 
 
 If Egoism is the end 
 
 To which earth's endless struggles tend, 
 
 If sharks and tigers generate 
 
 In soulless law, deep framed in hate, 
 
 Show Man his limits, and his hope 
 
 Falls in a void, beyond their scope, 
 
 Man is but animated clod, 
 
 The Universe has wed no God. 
 
 ! Tis axiom, and with fiends we dwell, 
 
 Where crime is legal, there is Hell. 
 
 Ah ! No. Tis false, God lives and loves, 
 Still o'er the waste his spirit moves, 
 And will till Man discerns the lie 
 And answers, " Need begets supply!" 
 
Doctrines of Angels. 269 
 
 Supply that knows no limit till 
 The granaries of the earth are full ; 
 Supply that knows no limit till 
 Grim winter no man's limbs can chill ; 
 No limit while the world complains 
 Of gnawing stomachs, starving brains. 
 
 Love rules, where " Need begets Supply." 
 There Famine needs no purse to buy 
 Salvation. Shall the drowning boor 
 Guggle his offer to the shore, 
 And from the trader on the bank 
 Get quoted price of deal and plank 
 Before, marked C. O. D., the wave 
 Floats rescue from his watery grave. 
 
 That 's the " demand " that Mammon knows 
 
 That 's the " supply " his hand bestows. 
 
 So purseless Ireland found, and lay 
 
 For awful years his helpless prey, 
 
 While Famine on her paupers fed, 
 
 Whose skeletons new paupers bred. 
 
 That 's Mammon's mercy ; she obeyed 
 
 What Statesmen call the " Laws of Trade," 
 
 And Ireland, moneyless, saw grain 
 
 44 Surplus production !" load his wain, 
 
 To drag her scanty, rotting crops 
 
 For profit to his English shops, 
 
 On highways thonged with creaking carts, 
 
 Trailing waste Labor to the marts 
 
 Where greasy priests dealt in their wares 
 
 Of mumbled purgatorial prayers, 
 
270 Witholding more than is meet tendeth to poverty. 
 
 And prated, in fat-muffled tones, 
 Over the staring fleshless bones, 
 How 'tis Man's duty, in the state 
 In which he's born, to ruminate 
 In dull content, and reverence 
 Of partial God's omnipotence. 
 
 Now drouth-swept China and Brazil 
 Against the infernal law appeal, 
 While we, with granaries full, deny 
 A measure to their misery. 
 
 Brazil and China lacking gold 
 
 A million farmers here have sold 
 
 Their harvests at far less than cost, 
 
 Which now, in elevators, massed 
 
 Must lie, till Mammon " profit " sees 
 
 Feeding Brazilians or Chinese. 
 
 Just Heaven ! and why not feed them now, 
 
 And pay ourselves the gladdened plow 
 
 The wage it earned by patient toil 
 
 Upon a Heaven-watered soil ; 
 
 Shall it in furrow rest appalled, 
 
 The markets of the world forestalled. 
 
 In their next year of plenitude, 
 
 The rescued Nations' gratitude 
 
 With thanks and love would reimburse 
 
 Our loan, and the wide universe 
 
 Would bless the State that disobeyed, 
 
 For Jesus' law, the " Laws of Trade." 
 
 And Commerce, won from conquered hearts, 
 
' T is more blessed to give than to receive. 271 
 
 Would pour its riches thro' our marts, 
 Needing nor subsidy nor grant, 
 To insure its quick development. 
 
 Oh ! for a statesman that dare sit 
 
 And learn law at the Child-man's feet ; 
 
 Oh ! for a statesman that dare prove 
 
 Th' illimitable might of Love, 
 
 For if one rill escaped the brim 
 
 Of Mammon's dam all earth would swim. 
 
 Ah ! was it powder that they asked, 
 
 How would our factories be tasked 
 
 To aid Death's angel, and incite 
 
 His pinions to a wider flight. 
 
 Mammon would grasp, at proper " shave " 
 
 The loan required to dig a grave, 
 
 And rear a stately monument, 
 
 Gilded with glory, for per-cent. 
 
 But nation loaning nation life ! 
 
 Man aiding man in Nature's strife ! 
 
 And granting by the loan a boon 
 
 To struggling Labor, that 's Commune ! 
 
 'Tis not Demand begets Supply ; 
 
 It is the voice of Deit}^, 
 
 Which since his cycle first began, 
 
 Evokes creative force in Man, 
 
 'Tis correlated Love demands 
 
 For need the product of his hands. 
 
 And Private Right, based on the thought 
 
272 Wealth and poverty Cause and consequence. 
 
 That each but for himself has wrought, 
 
 Cannot exist on cheaper food 
 
 Of Universal Brotherhood : 
 
 But with the tongues of nightingales, 
 
 And peacocks' brains his palate palls. 
 
 The purging glutton daily eats 
 
 The value of the healthful meats 
 
 Of scores on scores who daily fast, 
 
 To add a cate to his repast. 
 
 While he by "Laws of Trade'' ordains 
 
 Labor to mix his hand-ground grains 
 
 As erst Ezekiel, and quell 
 
 His appetite with ordure's smell. 
 
 In every idle man behold 
 His brother, somewhere, hungry, cold. 
 In every idle woman, see 
 Her sister doomed to infamy. 
 Still rolls the world in Mammon's rut, 
 Where the Cathedral shades the hut. 
 Where God is warm and men are cold, 
 The God that 's warm is God of Gold. 
 Where wealth in palaces is spilt, 
 There Private Right is public guilt. 
 For rich men are but stewards of wealth 
 Whose primal use is public health. 
 
 If that requires it, they must yield 
 
 Each brimming coffer, high-fenced field. 
 
 If that requires it, schools must tax 
 
 The low-necked silks from Madames' backs. 
 
Demand of Progress Abolition of "Profit" 273 
 
 If that requires it, Shylock's law 
 
 Must give no longer Courts employ. 
 
 If that requires it, Pharaoh's grain 
 
 Hunger must, free of cost, obtain. 
 
 If that requires it, Pharaohs here 
 
 Must cease their pyramids to rear. 
 
 If that requires it, Brigadier 
 
 Must cease to plot for Auctioneer, 
 
 Aye, even the " Charter Oak " must draw 
 
 Its check, unsheltered by the law. 
 
 If that requires it, the machines 
 Of factories and the lord's desmesnes 
 Shall see the working men divide 
 The "profits" now absorbed by pride. 
 Railroads shall only earn repair, 
 Grant no free pass and no half-fare. 
 And cheapened freight shall dearth defy, 
 'Till no man hungers 'neath our sky. 
 The "means of life " that men invent, 
 The "means of life" that God has lent, 
 Shall, progress aiding, recreate 
 A world of Love, from world of Hate. 
 
 No Probus talks, in dizzy dream 
 Looking from tower to see the gleam 
 Of horrid pikes rush at his breast, 
 Who lone on earth his hope confessed. 
 
 This is the soldiery's stern debate, 
 
 The army now is educate, 
 
 And now the legionaries scheme 
 
274 Earth's OTiaos moans and shrieks for light. 
 
 Beyond, above the Cesar's dream. 
 And, tired of slaughter, seek his den : 
 For now 'tis " profit " slaughters men 
 And health, nay, life itself, demands 
 His extirpation from free lands. 
 
 And that they do, let Stewart's bones 
 Whose theft for gain his life atones, 
 Rattling attest, as earth they roam, 
 Still seeking their mausoleum. 
 And that it does each tramp declares, 
 Who his hard lot with Jesus shares. 
 The mould that grows when engines rest 
 As scant demands new price adjust. 
 And that it does, each Poor House calls, 
 As age and vice infest its walls ; 
 While every jail to that truth swears, 
 As want and crime peep through its bars, 
 Aye ! So it does, each brothel .} T ells 
 Where full-fed lust in luxury dwells, 
 Bed-money halving as the price 
 Of th' awful life of death in vice, 
 Where girls their bodies rent for gold 
 For which his soul the renter sold ; 
 'Tis true ! 'tis true ! each gamin squeaks, 
 As in the gutters, "stubs" he seeks. 
 True, creaks the gallows as the priest 
 Defiles its rope, and taints its guest. 
 Aye ! all earth's moral Chaos blends 
 Accusing cry, and Heaven attends. 
 Lame, poor, and abject, the gods rave 
 And earth 's in turmoil for the slave. 
 
Pride builds for Destruction. 275 
 
 War, nursed, and fed at every hearth, 
 When adolescent grown, in mirth 
 Will fire the roof-tree of his house, 
 And on its ashen dust carouse. 
 ' When pity's tears God's eyes o'erflow, 
 And hiss within this hell of wo, 
 It belches lurid streams of hate 
 And pours on Greed his self-earned fate. 
 
 As Slaves, unfit for Freedom, saw 
 
 Their masters more unfit for law. 
 
 For slavery aye breeds a race, 
 
 Whose unchecked passions, laws efface. 
 
 So Private Right with curse is fraught, 
 
 Which must his heart who claims it, rot. 
 
 And the fermenting heat, allied 
 
 To stench, will generate mushroom Pride, 
 
 Pride for destruction builds. On sand 
 His fretted gargoyled arches stand ; 
 Keystoned by interest, by cabal 
 Intrigue and treachery they fall ; 
 As Time, with every tide sweeps down 
 A clumsy throne, or rusty crown, 
 Beside his current, stands in awe, 
 The parrot pulpit, and of law 
 Outraged, and right abused, declaims 
 To Sunday schools and fluttered dames, 
 And moralizing, screams that Man 
 Cannot substantial building plan, 
 Pointing the debris of his foe, 
 His incapacity to show. 
 
276 Chinese mind shaping. 
 
 Pride legislates but for himself, 
 He knows no world beyond his pelf. 
 Nature, mis-shaped, at his behest 
 Can feel no ease and know no rest, 
 Until his bonds she breaks, and frees 
 Her cramped limbs from his liveries. 
 
 He on throne Demiurgic sits. 
 And Man to bed Procustean fits ; 
 Who shorn, or stretched, alike rebels, 
 If to the brute he shrinks, or swells 
 Beyond the limits Pride would find 
 For his persistent growing mind. 
 
 Thus valiant Germany, knit by wars, 
 Her bosom seamed with Labor's scars, 
 Shows now as deep and fell a wound 
 As she beneath an Alva moaned ; 
 As that which desolated France, 
 By the revoked edict of Nantes. 
 
 Now, in dead ultramontane force, 
 Her stubborn Bismarck finds resource, 
 In his insane attempt to fill 
 Man's myriad brain with unit will. 
 Free speech in Freemen to destroy, 
 And mental serf shape German boy, 
 As Chinese dwarf, in earthen pot 
 Is to deformed perfection brought. 
 
 Pastor and priest divide control, 
 With Herr Justizrath of the school. 
 
Calvary's eclipse still glooms the earth. 277 
 
 Their jarring interests combine, 
 The sun of science must not shine, 
 Lest children thriving in its light, 
 Should grow to hate the Kaiser's might, 
 And drive the hoary perjurer 
 From his grim bone-surrounded lair, 
 As every German youth, from home 
 And friendship torn, must meet his doom, 
 Must grow in brutishness, by drill 
 Taught how to pipe-clay, how to kill. 
 
 On you to-day penumbra falls 
 
 Of Calvary's gloom, as Bismarck bawls 
 
 His hate of Darwin and his dread 
 
 Lest Love and Socialism spread. 
 
 The "Times" and "Tribune" joined as one 
 
 Become a Bismarck telephone, 
 
 While Joe Medill, whose deafened ear 
 
 God's voice in Nature cannot hear, 
 
 And Story, on whose crested pride, 
 
 God's love would waste a flooding tide, 
 
 Meet with a jibe, greet with a sneer, 
 
 The patriot's wrath and exile's tear 
 
 And praise his ukase, smothering thought, 
 
 Which for the creed that Jesus taught, 
 
 Dooms to sad exile, or the cell, 
 
 Who loves his fellow-man too well, 
 
 From his swelled heart to hush the cry, 
 
 Echoed from Calvary's agony. 
 
 Ah ! well. The exiled Huguenot 
 A grim revenge on Louis wrought ; 
 
278 L' etat c' est moil 
 
 When Europe, balanced, felt their weight 
 
 Upon the scale, he met his fate. 
 
 The universal Empire fell 
 
 To ruin, for their forces swell 
 
 The hosts of William. Tiger Heart 
 
 Broke with its long corroding smart. 
 
 Stripped of his conquests, stripped of Fame, 
 
 Old age despised, and death in shame, 
 
 A naked, robbed, dishonored corse, 
 
 Were his reward who ruled by force. 
 
 From Notre Dame's high campaniles 
 Came faint to earth their solemn peals, 
 As sullen roared, bells swinging slow 
 And clam'rous clashed their clang'rous woe, 
 While tinkling laughter reigned below. 
 And ribald mirth upon its path 
 Followed the hearse with sneering teeth. 
 A Funeral parade, prolonged, 
 As dancers on its highway thronged, 
 Whose taniborines and cymbals drown 
 The "De Profundis" hollow moan, 
 Was his reward who, tireless, sought 
 By dragonnades to govern thought, 
 Who said, " The State and I, are one. 
 The State exists but in the throne." 
 
 No dungeon can repress, no chain 
 Can bind God's Spirit in Man's brain. 
 Tyrants their day may domineer, 
 But the Idea swells, and fear 
 Holds its persistent force in check, 
 
Public opinion Fashion. 279 
 
 Till Thought condensed explodes to wreck 
 The steam chests of Aristocrats, 
 Thick rivetted bv Theocrats. 
 
 Public Opinion sways mankind 
 Except the King, the Jew, and hind. 
 The first and third above it show, 
 The second grovels far below. 
 
 See how his bastard, Fashion rules 
 And uniforms her gawking schools ; 
 She giggles, at a last year's gown 
 Unworn, a health}*" maid will swoon ; 
 This year, Consumption fits her shoes. 
 The next, and stilts her heels disclose ; 
 Last year, all virgin, now, with young, 
 The next upon the pave will throng 
 The jades, delivered of their humps, 
 No. Fashion piles them on their rumps. 
 
 She '11 curl their hat brims, dandies stare 
 If you a better, flattened, wear. 
 She '11 add two buttons. Abraham gloats 
 And tickets half-price glossy coats. 
 Last month, Apollo's pantaloons 
 Dodged from the skimping tailor's duns, 
 And now, a Titan's trousers bag 
 Round Fashion's wandering wending leg. 
 
 See how his toothless rabid sire 
 Nicknamed as " Honor," drives thro' mire 
 Of Shame and Crime, his timid slaves, 
 
280 Hondh! 
 
 And fills, for words, their brutish graves. 
 
 See, trained by him, the bully bawl 
 
 Across the court, with savage yell, 
 
 While thro' his pistol-sights, his glare 
 
 Dances on buck-shot, to repair 
 
 Within the juror's clotted heart, 
 
 The verdict that gave " Honor" smart. 
 
 Where "High-toned Families," strumpets breed, 
 
 The Assassin answers " Honor's" need, 
 
 Whose Code a son of Cain gives birth, 
 
 To square the circle 'round his hearth, 
 
 And Justice shivers at his mirth 
 
 As winking Judge inspects his plea, 
 
 " Emotional Insanity ! " 
 
 " Mental excitement ? ""Mania ! Sir," 
 
 " Insane ! ? " "A moment, I aver 
 
 I was insane, I cried, begad, 
 
 For I was mad ! yes very mad ! " 
 
 O! Sickles! Stevens! Sullivan! 
 
 The insanity was in the gun. 
 
 When Cain for Abel sought, he had 
 
 A club prepared, the club was mad, 
 
 Insane, its blow was death, the arm 
 
 Alone, scarce capable of harm. 
 
 When murder 's in the heart, his grip 
 
 Finds willing weapon at his hip, 
 
 Where coward Honor lies in wait, 
 
 Hiding from Law, to assassinate. 
 
 The pistol always means to kill 
 
 The game-bag only proves his skill, 
 
 Who goes a-gunning all his days, 
 
 Even though he cries, before he slays. 
 
How the hip pocket educates the man-slayer. 281 
 
 Hell, with a longing, wishful grin, 
 Is always whispering to the skin, 
 Feeling its emissary's tube, 
 That vomits death, forever rub 
 And nose it, begging for the pill 
 Of powdered hate to puke, and kill. 
 Death felt in every movement, thought 
 To sudden homicide is taught ; 
 And Honor's crazy, when his squeak 
 Is answered by his victim's shriek. 
 
 Such strength has doting Honor yet, 
 
 Tho' Murder leaves the pave red- wet 
 
 With child-wife's blood, whose floating steam 
 
 For vengeance! swells its voiceless scream, 
 
 As the wan ghost drifts high and higher, 
 
 'Till she the Eternal Throne aspire, 
 
 And wins from God such meed for guilt, 
 
 As Fury-whipped Orestes felt ; 
 
 Man mops the planks, and vindicates 
 
 The horror, as he solemn prates, 
 
 That when adultery is suspect 
 
 He can't a giddy life protect ; 
 
 Certain that the next Summer's rain 
 
 Will placate Heaven, and cleanse the stain. 
 
 If such its might abnormal, where 
 Set limit to its normal power? 
 Public opinion is the source 
 Of every governmental force. 
 It swings the axe lops Sultan's head 
 Whose Janissaries are unfed ; 
 19 
 
282 Public opinion. 
 
 The Catholic hears it, left in lurch, 
 
 By Purcell, levies on the Church ; 
 
 It laughs at Biddy, Peter's pence 
 
 Are lost, to Papal indigence ; 
 
 Beaten by law, it dropped debate 
 
 And with Sharpe's rifles won a State ; 
 
 Though Webster roared, and Taney frowned, 
 
 It built a Railway underground ; 
 
 Despite the press, broke down the law, 
 
 Despite the Church, held God in awe. 
 
 Tho' Cotton, King, abjured its sway, 
 
 It France and England held at bay ; 
 
 It more than arms, Man's victory won 
 
 As John Brown's soul went marching on. 
 
 In Freedom 'tis omnipotent ; 
 
 But in duress it must ferment, 
 
 Until it finds through bonds a vent, 
 
 To burst in wrath to its intent. 
 
 From every year of suff'ring 's wrought 
 
 A century of infuriate thought. 
 
 And they but fight with bolts and bars, 
 
 Sisera-like, the coursing stars, 
 
 Who as Bismarck or Douglas scheme 
 
 To rule its superheated steam. 
 
 The steam will out, tho' Bismarck sit 
 On safety valve, new patch to fit ; 
 Even now the hissing vapors fling 
 His shroud towards every frightened King. 
 Bismarcks and Williams yet will feel 
 A Socialistic Cromwell's steel, 
 
Solid South. 283 
 
 As Stafford did, or Charles the first, 
 (By Mammon sainted, Man accurst). 
 Eight hundred thousand votes express 
 A Germany that mocks duress, 
 Vengeance attends Time's plodding feet. 
 Man is immortal, he can wait. 
 
 Here see the taint of Slavery's corse 
 Impregnate Southern air with force, 
 And send its putrid product forth 
 As Congressmen to rule the North, 
 As if Pandora there unlocks 
 To plague the earth, a ballot box, 
 Whose tissued tickets swell our debt 
 By "private claims" for Slavocrat ; 
 So Mammon's lawyer howls in fear 
 Lest his bonds, quoted now at par, 
 Depreciate, for debt's increase 
 Must mean security's decrease. 
 Yet thus does "Solid South" display 
 Her Private Right to natural sway, 
 A solid South but means that Land 
 Has vindicated her demand 
 For that control, which must be hers 
 Wherever plowshare fallow stirs. 
 
 No question this of Black and White 
 The claim is just, by private right. 
 For Mammon never yielded yet 
 A right for general benefit ; 
 But is, by law, required to sell 
 What 's needed for the commonweal. 
 
284 Land rules the landless. 
 
 For all thus taken by the State, 
 
 It must the owner compensate. 
 
 This is the quarrel 'twixt Wealth and Man, 
 
 Which never ends, and never can, 
 
 While Toil must life and muscle sell 
 
 For leave on Mammon's land to dwell, 
 
 The "color line" is but a myth 
 
 Ambition gulls the simple with. 
 
 Deeper than color, race, or blood, 
 
 This quarrel dates beyond the flood, 
 
 When Earth, in violence corrupt, 
 
 By God's avenging tide was swept. 
 
 " Such rain-falls happen often ? " Never ! " 
 
 44 Never, you say." "Well, hardly ever." 
 
 For these two nations all comprise, 
 
 That dwell beneath the arching skies, 
 
 Landed, and Landless, Rich, and Poor, 
 
 Whose fight forever must endure, 
 
 Till Nature's bosom gladly hugs 
 
 All mankind to her dripping dugs. 
 
 Land rules the landless ; Nature shows 
 That Mammon's force aye downward flows. 
 'Tis Nature's law ; the widest root 
 Must still produce the strongest shoot, 
 And in its shade all meaner growth 
 Is as the negro in the South, 
 Whose lordlings lacking legal lash, 
 Still hold swart Labor in their leash, 
 Who dies or votes as they command, 
 With legal title to his land, 
 Forcing their ballot in his hand. 
 
Archimides perplexed. 285 
 
 Whence comes the sap to nourish Toil, 
 
 If Law denies his roots the soil ? 
 
 The South, for mutual guilt is blamed, 
 
 For, Dame Columbia, much ashamed 
 
 Of her black baby undesired, 
 
 By Freedom ravished when ' twas sired, 
 
 Stole out at night, and in the gloom 
 
 Its basket hung at Foundlings' Home, 
 
 Denied its right to drain her breast, 
 
 And spurned where she should have caressed. 
 
 With " forty acres and the mule," 
 
 This heir of Sycorax might rule, 
 
 Where now his hoarse, unwilling throat 
 
 Alarms the North with bulldozed vote. 
 
 Men, like Archimedes, demand, 
 To move the world, a place to stand ; 
 Four million paupers, that, denied 
 Must be the serfs of landed pride. 
 Suppose the negro held the lands, 
 Would he vote carpet-bagger bonds, 
 Save as New York has done for Tweed ? 
 Save as all Ignorance will for Greed? 
 
 The horse and driver equal share 
 The Street Railway's parental care, 
 Save this, the Horse, groomed, stalled, and fed, 
 Pays wholesale price for corn, and bed, 
 And knows his crib, and manger, full, 
 Rewards his six hours' honest pull. 
 Experience proves the profit lost 
 If longer hours the horse exhaust. 
 
286 Law vs. Gravity. 
 
 Profit remains, tho' Jehu 's wan, 
 Th' experiment 's not been tried on Man, 
 The Driver. Ah ! who dare affirm 
 He saw one with groomed epiderm, 
 Scant time for bathing sixteen hours, 
 Through winter frosts, and summer showers 
 Retain his place, whose ballot 's robbed ; 
 Miswrit, excuse me, ballot 's Cobbed : 
 Earn wages that refuse him spice 
 To life, sustained at retail price. 
 If Law allowed Cobb's horses votes 
 They 'd vote for Wright or lose their oats. 
 
 The demagogue may froth and rave, 
 But Lackall is at best a slave, 
 Whose force, impotent for his right 
 Must aid his legal plunderers might. 
 The loom that feeds the weaver's babes, 
 Weaves votes as naturally as webs, 
 Both loom and weaver must obey, 
 Or cease to work, the engine's sway. 
 
 Ah ! Blaine ! No legislative tricks 
 
 Can Nature's oil and water mix, 
 
 While through the compound bayonets gleam, 
 
 All homogeneous it may seem. 
 
 But see, if Hayes Grant's stirrings stop, 
 
 The oil will gather on the top ; 
 
 And he but legislates as Pope 
 
 With comet pits his Bull to cope, 
 
 Whese legislation would prevent 
 
 Land's private right to government. 
 
The Martyr Age. - 287 
 
 In scorn of Nature's chemistry, 
 
 Go stir again 'tis Anarchy ! 
 
 Each atom of each blended race 
 
 Untiring strains for natural place ; 
 
 With gravity but fools dispute : 
 
 Water must sink, and oil must float. 
 
 How hope to obtain a settled State 
 
 By fanning discontent to hate. 
 
 The South 's not good, like we are, well- 
 
 If she 's a little nearer hell, 
 
 As she robs labor, that we cheat, 
 
 'Tis she, not we must bear its heat. 
 
 Clubs did not cure the perverse bitch, 
 
 'T were folly now to try a switch ; 
 
 She 's now in the bull-dozing stage 
 
 Of Progress, that 's the Martyr Age, 
 
 All peoples must wade that red sea, 
 
 That rolls 'twixt Serfdom and the free, 
 
 Before on Pisgah's heights they stand 
 
 To view the golden, sun-lit strand 
 
 Of Brotherhood's long Promised Land. 
 
 But yesterday, in Boston ! Sons 
 Of Slave-importing Puritans 
 Thro' grinning streets led Garrison, 
 With rope encircled neck, what fun ! 
 As healthy public sentiment 
 Awarded Zealot chastisement. 
 
 We laughed, and waded afterward 
 And his black brother 's now our ward. 
 Public Opinion 's changed since then, 
 
288 The possible best, corrupted, the worst. 
 
 Virginia's beasts are Boston men, 
 
 Yet they must wear their ropes, because 
 
 Public Opinion mocks all laws. 
 
 Our Ward ! But Freedom can't afford 
 To check Opinion by the sword ; 
 By force are martyrs made, as well 
 As sigh for Heaven, they howl for Hell. 
 France clutched the sword for La Vendee- 
 Found a Napoleon, so would we, 
 Did we to any man entrust 
 The power to make the Southron just. 
 
 For men, unanimous for wrong 
 
 Power cannot quell, but 'tis too strong 
 
 For Freedom, as it longs upon 
 
 The narrow ford of Rubicon. 
 
 A Nation with its N overgrown 
 
 Is perilously near a throne. 
 
 When Frenchmen were by u glory " lured. 
 
 'T was the sole letter in the word. 
 
 If Treason 's known by his defeat, 
 And Victory proves who had the right, 
 O ! Lawyers burn your briefs and " train,' 
 Let muscle serve in lieu of brain, 
 Contend for verdicts with your fists 
 And causes win as pugilists. 
 Bah ! nothing 's proven by a war. 
 But what is settled by a spar : 
 The God of battle always aids 
 The side that has the best brigades. 
 
War the pioneer of Peace. 289 
 
 But War's blaze reddens on the clouds 
 Of darkness which a land enshrouds. 
 Its bellowing thunders crash thro' ears 
 With cursing full, and deaf to prayers, 
 Its hissing lightning's lurid glare 
 Splits passage thro' the astounded air 
 Till light can follow thro' the breach 
 'Go out thro' all the land, and preach," 
 That Force alone, the South can reach, 
 Love tvins his vassals by " Free Speech" 
 
 A barren victory we bought 
 When pity left the South untaught. 
 Bunting at half-mast ; dreary sign 
 For Custom-Houses swings supine. 
 Within whose folds no citizen 
 Is wrapped in all that Landlord's den 
 Droops over States by Factions rent, 
 And ruled by knaves on plunder bent, 
 Whose forum's snarling, shrill debate 
 Has purpose but to phrenzy hate. 
 
 Forced marriage 'twixt the South and North 
 The drab and bully, must give birth 
 To Crime's corrupt and mildewed fruit, 
 Till rills from bitter springs flow sweet. 
 Its only bond the party built 
 On Ignorance, combined with guilt. 
 The " Democrat, 1 ' by love abhorred, 
 Bondholders' serf and Serfdom's lord. 
 Their offspring, whom consent has wed 
 Alone can bless the marriage bed. 
 
2QQ Force never conquers. 
 
 Go ! read your horn-book, Statesman Elaine, 
 
 States pauperized, are War's domain. 
 
 Not even Mammon's force can quell 
 
 The strife in Moloch's lower hell : 
 
 Man can but wait while through their night 
 
 The land and serf have out their fight. 
 
 How long, God knows ; the grim affray 
 
 Of Hastings knows no end to-day ; 
 
 In England yet the arrowy sleet 
 
 Of Saxon bows, blunts at the feet 
 
 Of Norman armor, sped and lost 
 
 For ages on the mail of caste. 
 
 Good God ! Through Ireland's every Fair 
 
 To-day Boyne's dirty currents tear. 
 
 Still Limerick's tattered hosts appall 
 
 Beleaguered Derry's battered wall. 
 
 From " Papal power and wooden shoes" 
 
 'Neath landlords' rule she rescue rues. 
 
 Neighbor meets neighbor with a scowl, 
 
 In savage feuds shillalahs howl, 
 
 And creeds contend to barbarize, 
 
 Till hatred glares from childrens' eyes. 
 
 And even here, St. Patrick's ghost 
 
 Arrays in green his squalid host, 
 
 Acraze, if Orange lends a grace 
 
 And brightens bloom of brunette's face. 
 
 Force never conquers. From the Abyss 
 Undying Hate's continuous hiss 
 Blends with the wails of dull despair, 
 As grim Jehovah triumphs there. 
 
How Rome levelled an aristocracy. 291 
 
 If in the early dawn you crush 
 A serpent's head to bloody mush, 
 Thro' Summer's day its tail will writhe 
 Till sunset, angry, fierce, and lithe. 
 And, if denied a sepulchre, 
 Will, after, taint the atmosphere. 
 
 When Man of Freedom's throes is born, 
 Placenta must from womb be torn, 
 Else with imbedded death she'll strain, 
 And die, of afterbirth, in pain. 
 
 When Rome subdued the Gabii, 
 They gave no after pain : the why, 
 Tell me, ye statesmen, who debate 
 Of Davis, pensioned by the State, 
 Because you dared not confiscate 
 The lands of traitors, and bestow 
 Their acres on their natural foe. 
 
 When water cleanses Pilate's hand 
 (By murdered innocence blood-stained ! ) 
 That doomed to death of pain and shame, 
 The man in whom he found no blame ; 
 Then legislation can assoil 
 Their guilt, who on swart sons of Toil 
 Heaped Serfdom's cross, to see them bend 
 Tho' free by law, the slaves of land. 
 
 A democratic party, schooled 
 Bull-dozing to maintain, and ruled 
 By shot-gun representatives ; 
 
292 The North and South, seen from Ebal. 
 
 And a republican, that lives 
 
 On faded glory all profaned, 
 
 By bondholders, who have attained 
 
 Its guidance, and whose greed exacts 
 
 From wages slaves a tripled tax. 
 
 A North, subservient to Gold, 
 
 A South by lords of land controlled, 
 
 Alike rob Labor, and divide 
 
 The curses wanting cankered pride. 
 
 And such their doom, he must foretell 
 
 Who in the calm of thought can dwell, 
 
 
 
 An inch or two above the crowd 
 And note their discord, jarring, loud, 
 Hither and yonder drive the ball, 
 Which, with each struggle, nears its goal. 
 
 But for abuses, Power exists. 
 
 Man still must grope in dusking mists 
 
 Whose gloom 's unpierced by faintest ray 
 
 To herald his millenial day, 
 
 Must hopeless his fruition wait, 
 
 While "Private Right" evolves the State. 
 
 Ne'er can in peace on plenty feast 
 
 Until the greatest serves the least ; 
 
 Until the wisest racks his mind 
 
 To heal, and not to hurt his kind. 
 
 Till they, in Love, find their reward 
 
 Who serving Man best serve his Lord ; 
 
 Until all creeds that on Greed fawn 
 
 He buries 'neath contempt and scorn. 
 
The past poisons the present. 293 
 
 Till happy earth refuses room 
 For granite plinth to mark his tomb, 
 Who grown insane with selfishness, 
 Spends life to curse, what he might bless. 
 
 Ah! While upon the Place Venddme 
 The brazen column finds a home, 
 From captured cannon cast, and flings 
 War's halo on a King of Kings ! 
 While from its height Napoleon glares 
 In bronze, upon a town that fears 
 To wreck the monument, whence Crime's 
 Apotheosis perching, mimes 
 The Governments that in its shade, 
 Make Man a serf and God a Trade, 
 Though Gambetta, McMahon, Thiers, 
 Each flaunts his day, each disappears, 
 And on Man's future leaves no trace ; 
 Napoleon's " Glory," rules his race. 
 
 France,howling "Vengeance!"and "The Rhine!" 
 
 Lies raging at his gory shrine. 
 
 In her the tongue of Love is mute 
 
 Till working-men refuse to shoot 
 
 Their fellows, to assert a claim 
 
 For domination, or for " Fame," 
 
 And all uniting, drag the thought 
 
 To earth, that in the bronze is wrought, 
 
 Each shifting, wrangling Cabinet 
 
 Of France, is but a changing threat 
 
 To eclipse the dawn with glooms of war 
 
 And light the earth with " Glory's Star." 
 
294 The World Righters. 
 
 As Cromwell's warty ghost still rules 
 In England and each Guelph schools 
 To quiet cunning, lest his axe 
 Repeal a too outrageous tax. 
 Tho' in her royal galleries, space, 
 'Twixt Lies and Lust, refused his face. 
 Her greatest monarch, loyal pride 
 The Lord Protector's reign denied 
 All England sees it on the wall, 
 All England knows it waits her call. 
 Not long, thank God ! a few more years 
 And rage will dry her blinding tears, 
 His bleaching head, on Temple Bar 
 Restrains, affrighting with its glower, 
 A scrofulous breed, all coward born, 
 Cradled in down, and lapped in lawn; 
 And Freedom slowly gains as dread 
 Faints in their eyes, and limps their tread. 
 
 So France, to Danton must return, 
 And feel his grand heart thro' her yearn ; 
 The heart that power and creed defames, 
 Whose ardor, their cold splendor, shames, 
 For universal Right, for Man, 
 For nobler aims than tribe, or clan, 
 With " Glory " spawning " invalides " 
 On grandeur's brutal pyramids. 
 
 What part of " Glory" e'er was claimed 
 (Save privilege to rape, unshamed,) 
 By Toil's invading renegade, 
 Trampling the harvests of his spade. 
 
The Martyrs build the Shrines. 295 
 
 Ah ! Frenchmen, on the Place de Greve 
 You did Man's victory achieve ! 
 There ! women fearless, knit, and there 
 The tyrant's fate, left him co-heir 
 Inheritance, in love, to share. 
 For Love grows cruel, when his wrath 
 Sweeps drones and tyrants from his path. 
 
 France will unite, and once again 
 Drag down that horror to the plain. 
 Ambition's spectre hating wraith 
 Glooming with " Glory " Reason's path. 
 And at its fall, the doleful wail, 
 Of shuddering priests and tyrants pale 
 Will float like feathers on the gale 
 Of Freedom's shout, as every den 
 Whence Labor breaks, cries glad " Amen." 
 Danton again will wake ! The walls 
 Blood-spattered by praetorian balls 
 Where thro' the dismal, rattling dawn, 
 In long files stood and died Commune 
 Shall know their dreary stains effaced, 
 And all the proud Tuilleries graced 
 With Love's memorials, as enrolled, 
 Man's martyrs shine in burnished gold. 
 
 Aye, strut your waning day, ye great ! 
 Labor that built shall own the State. 
 His ruddy flag again shall call 
 To life and love the law-bound thrall 
 Of Europe's thrones, and surly Cain 
 In fright will fly Man's face again. 
 
296 Antceus unconquerable. 
 
 Danton is coming, O ! be wise. 
 Anger him not with sophistries, 
 Nor weary him with slow debate 
 On what terms you capitulate ; 
 Concede him Nature's equal law ; 
 Behind him, drunken, stands Marat. 
 
 For poverty is sinewed. Dearth , 
 
 Man closer drives to mother earth. 
 From every fall Antaeus springs 
 With strength renewed at throats of Kings. 
 On Nature's drink and Nature's bread 
 The conquerors of the world are fed. 
 Strength leaps, spontaneous, from the field, 
 Stalks frowning from his smoke-grimed bield, 
 With nervous courage in his stride, 
 Into the halls, where lust and pride, 
 State fed, and pampered, cease to brawl, 
 And at his feet in terror sprawl. 
 
 Hark ye ! whose Law-created sun 
 Your bonds and mortgages smiles on, 
 Forcing their silent fungous growth 
 Thro' winter's frost and summer's drouth, 
 Whose cancerous wilderness of roots, 
 Throughout the social frame, sends shoots, 
 Which scattering virus taint the course 
 Of Labor's life-blood at its source. 
 
 Ye who God's query mock, with Cain, 
 "Are we our brothers' keepers, then ?'' 
 Who discrown Labor, and compel 
 
Samson. 297 
 
 His blinded strength your hoards to swell. 
 Who sweat his blood, and rack his brain, 
 For cushioned, lolling, Luxury's gain, 
 And, like Philistines in their court, 
 Make of your captive, vaunting sport. 
 
 Can you not see the giant move ? 
 
 Can you not feel his swart hands rove, 
 
 Groping the columns, that uphold 
 
 Your vaulted fane of breeding gold ? 
 
 Can you not scent the smouldering fire, 
 
 Of his awaking, vengeful ire ? 
 
 Nor hear his sobbing, laboring breath, 
 
 As Samson struggles for his death ? 
 
 That you still spurn, flout, taunt, and jeer 
 
 His sightless misery void of fear ; 
 
 Drain luscious wines, and gaily prance 
 
 The giddy mazes of your dance ; 
 
 Glad homage yield your yellow God, 
 
 His dizened acolytes applaud, 
 
 And boast his might, who sent this shame 
 
 Upon Jehovah's hated name, 
 
 That you, in fancied safety gird 
 
 The sad earth's chained and waiting Lord. 
 
 Ah ! Revellers ! note the clustering locks 
 Whose vigor legal bondage mocks ; 
 Even now his steely sinews strain 
 The gilded posts that prop your fane ; 
 See how his sunken eyeballs stare, 
 With crazed, demoniac, iron-red glare, 
 As tho' a fiend's glance pierced the air, 
 
 20 
 
298 Equality. 
 
 Of Hell's abyss, in blank despair. 
 While suicidal, murderous cries, 
 In broken gasps, unceasing rise. 
 "Only this once ! for my two eyes ! 
 Jehovah ! Aid ! O ! let me die 
 That they with me in death may lie." 
 
 Your rocking temple seals your doom : 
 Its splintered stones shall mark your tomb, 
 While down the ages, echoing, pour 
 The paeans of the gladdened poor, 
 Rejoicing o'er the fallen tower 
 Of land-based, profit-mortared Power. 
 
 Labor alone will resurrect ; 
 The broken stones, and columns cracked 
 He '11 gather, and long aisles of homes 
 Replace your gilded empty domes. 
 One roof will shelter hundreds, where 
 Perpetual fragrance fills the air. 
 Each family clustering at its hearth, 
 Or warmed or cooled by Mother Earth, 
 In happy harmony, unbroke 
 For none impose or wear the yoke 
 Of creed, and there no wish shall gain 
 Admittance, for another's pain. 
 All live at cost ; the widow's cruise 
 Is ever full where none misuse, 
 Or waste the gifts that Nature showers 
 In watered crops and frostless bowers. 
 Age has no helplessness, secure, 
 Where none are rich, there none are poor. 
 
Retribution. 299 
 
 O ! ye who glean from Potter's field 
 
 The scanty harvests wrong can yield ; 
 
 Who shape its hillocks in pursuit 
 
 Of selfish happiness, and hoot 
 
 Him as insane, whose love- waked eyes 
 
 Discern thro' mists of tyrannies, 
 
 The shadows of the glorious goal 
 
 That waits Heart blent with Brain for Toil. 
 
 Think ye the God of Justice lolls 
 
 In drowsy ease, while Time unrolls 
 
 Her record to his hazy eyes, 
 
 How Profit bloats, and Manhood dies ? 
 
 That he supine, and listless, lies 
 
 So far remote in azure skies, 
 
 That Misery's wail, and Labor's moan 
 
 Wasted in space, ne'er reach his throne ? 
 
 Ye fools, whose hopes are born of earth : 
 
 Who famine fattened, thrive on dearth ; 
 
 Behind you Retribution creeps, 
 
 Her foot-falls planted in your steps ; 
 
 Vengeance but waits until your cup 
 
 Brims full with curses you shall sup ; 
 
 Until the usury-bursting debt 
 
 You owe despoiled and unpaid sweat, 
 
 To its last day of grace arrives, 
 
 Then her stern hand, remorseless rives 
 
 The law-protected, crimsoned spoils 
 
 For which you've pawned your wizened souls, 
 
 Aye ! Nemesis with Man conspires 
 To rear the suicidal pyres 
 
300 The Titans subdue the Gods. 
 
 Ambition's senseless, selfish craze 
 
 Kindles to all consuming blaze, 
 
 High-flaming over pomp and pride 
 
 Whose law the Eternal Right defied, 
 
 Blending their palaces with mould, 
 
 Leaving in ash their glittering gold, 
 
 While Mammon's votaries, chill and gaunt, 
 
 Herd houseless on the shores of want, 
 
 (Their flabby muscles, interest-fed, 
 
 Unfit to earn .their daily bread,) 
 
 While those whose necks their spiked heels trod, 
 
 Laugh, as they whine of Mercy's God, 
 
 And wreak revenges on the drones 
 
 Whose sordid blood their crime atones. 
 
 Unpitying slay, while Heaven applauds, 
 The snivelling, would-be demigods, 
 For whose just doom is heard no sigh, 
 For whose just doom is wet no eye 
 Or if there are, no God is there, 
 To note the tear, or heed the prayer. 
 
 Luxurious ease, which, fear, disdains, 
 
 Is surest harbinger of pains. 
 
 The lull of silent tropic seas, 
 
 Whose waveless calm seems lasting peace, 
 
 Foretells the howling hurricane 
 
 Whose blasts tear thro' th' affrighted main. 
 
 Here, though the pyramid of power 
 Based on robbed labor seems secure, 
 Tho' hawk-nosed Syrians of the school 
 
The Teredo. 301 
 
 For Pharaoh all Egypt stole, 
 With legal engines ceaseless pile 
 New burdens on the o'er burdened soil. 
 Till now they rave for the last stone 
 Its vertex to adorn, a throne. 
 
 Filled when the scared and plundered State, 
 
 Elects this third-term candidate, 
 
 Who like an heir-apparent eyes 
 
 The crown he'll wear when Freedom dies. 
 
 His dangerous Fame, the vilest scar 
 
 She got by internecine war. 
 
 Not but they'd be as well content 
 
 With the hoar hypocrite, whose plaint 
 
 Awakes derision as he rates 
 
 Fraud for her theft of bull-dozed states. 
 
 Who still intent on earning Fame 
 
 With fresh cogged dice would win his game, 
 
 Would drive Columbia's patrols 
 
 From all her presidential polls, 
 
 And prideful place in History fix, 
 
 By turning up a double six ! 
 
 Who cannot see that at its base 
 Is here and there a thinking face, 
 Which moans no more of hapless fate, 
 But toils untiring 'neath their State, 
 To dig th' abyss, which deep and wide, 
 Will 'gulf in doom their high piled pride. 
 Who cannot hear the grumbling earth 
 Complain her harvest-trampled dearth, 
 
302 Laocoon. 
 
 While her hot heart fierce flames to burst 
 A chasm in her tortured crust, 
 From which oblivion's ash shall gloom 
 The pall of pomp and shower its tomb. 
 
 Like Laocoon, straining Toil 
 All helpless in the slimy coil 
 Of the Constrictor, tottering stands, 
 To fend, with unavailing hands 
 His living death, whose horrid fold 
 Betrays the sheen of hungry gold. 
 At quivering knee and panting breast, 
 His crushed, expiring babes are pressed, 
 Whose filmy eyes in anguish stare 
 To his drawn face, despairing prayer, 
 While to his brain the poison 's sped 
 Of the quick-darting-hissing head. 
 
 Who sees that statue comprehends 
 What meaning with the chiseling blends. 
 Profit the coils. The venomed head 
 Vindictive and malignant creed. 
 And Man, supporting both, contends 
 'Gainst double death with naked hands. 
 His children, Art and Science, bound, 
 And fettered in the narrow round 
 That bigots grant to thought, in vain 
 With nerveless limbs for freedom strain, 
 Palsied by want and numbed by fear 
 All helpless to avenge their sire. 
 Yet in this age will Labor break 
 These paralyzing coils, and shake 
 
Interest must be abolished. 303 
 
 From his freed limbs the crushing weight 
 Of tax for debt evolved of Hate. 
 For here his hand is weaponed. Here 
 Even now the forked tongue shrinks in fear. 
 With brain taught ballot now his wrath 
 Copes with the bonds of clinging death. 
 
 When Man once knows, as dollars breed, 
 They eat what Labor's children need ; 
 That nations who incur a debt, 
 To pay will steal his childrens' meat 
 Rather than tax the " House of God" 
 Sensation mongering to Fraud ; 
 Rather than ask that annual gain, 
 Shall annual expense sustain ; 
 That Interest, even now, demands 
 More then all profit of all lands, 
 That 's yearly saved by patient toil, 
 From all machines, and from all soil, 
 He will, he must repudiate 
 All Interest. Why should he create, 
 But to see power, by usury, swell 
 Stored sulphur for an earthly hell. 
 
 When. he can comprehend how theft 
 
 His righteous profit has bereft, 
 
 How Rent will more than halve his crop, 
 
 And double cost at retail shop ; 
 
 How 'twill his food adulterate, 
 
 Will shrink its bulk, decrease its weight ; 
 
 And knows the purse-proud millionaire 
 
 Exists because Law will not share 
 
304 All will own what All create. 
 
 'The value made where workers throng, 
 Which should to them, of Right belong. 
 As landed sharks find legal spoil - 
 In wealth his presence adds to soil. 
 Labor will shape his palm to fist 
 And land monopoly resist. 
 Each town, incorporate, will demand 
 Sole ownership of all its land, 
 And all the wealth that needs create 
 Where toiling thousands aggregate 
 Will to their common granary flow 
 Who reap the harvests that they sow. 
 
 Man -loving Gracchi will discuss 
 With red-eyed gyve-marked Spartacus, 
 How clip, with sharp Agrarian Laws, 
 Fierce Mammon's subdividing claws ; 
 Who when Toil has a city planned 
 Clutches by deed, suburban land, 
 And, as the struggling multitude, 
 Who in its business find their food, 
 Increase in numbers, and surround 
 With cottages, his forestalled ground, 
 Claims as his legal Right, the gain 
 The town bestows on sterile plain,. 
 And gladly sees, from fields untilled, 
 His vaults with yellow harvests filled. 
 As shelter seekers must compete, 
 And cost of acres, pay for " feet," 
 To him, who with Law's title squats, 
 Waiting for Fortune, on his lots ; 
 Dragged to his wealth, as boys who meet 
 
Rage repressed is stimulated. 305 
 
 The jogging farmer on the street, 
 
 And hitched behind his sled, in pride. 
 
 Past self-dependent plodders glide. 
 
 When peoples, like the farmer, find 
 
 The load too great, they '11 u cut behind," 
 
 And, mocking execrations swing 
 
 Their lash, with justice' knotted sting, 
 
 Laughing to see the law-made rich 
 
 Tumbling and cursing in the ditch, 
 
 While Progress, from their dead weight freed, 
 
 Flies on her course with swifter speed. 
 
 A Bobbin-winder would be missed 
 But never an Evangelist, 
 And when no Landlord 's left on earth, 
 His loss will be the loss of dearth ! 
 
 When wakening thought in seething brain 
 
 Breaks from the torpid priest's domain 
 
 And seeks to guide Man's errant course 
 
 That Love may dwell in peace with Force, 
 
 All legislation to suppress 
 
 The strong hoarse cry which claims redress, 
 
 Awakens but a fiercer zeal, 
 
 Wrong's moss-grown statutes to repeal. 
 
 The Social organism's rife 
 
 With whirring turmoil, ceaseless strife : 
 
 Such as thro' Chaos' formless night 
 
 Broke at the word, "Let there be Light." 
 
 While aimless, earth-accusing cries, 
 
 To laughing Heaven, "unceasing rise, 
 
806 Usurers veneered Cannibals. 
 
 As new forms crush and rend the old 
 Resisting, even in their mould. 
 Surrounded by a world transformed, 
 For old life shaped, in new, deformed, 
 The Saurian and Icthyosaur, 
 Gasp in the fresher atmosphere, 
 Whose bright air stifles, in their grime, 
 The monsters bred in Chaos' slime. 
 
 As now, his. shelves the student fills 
 With craniums of cannibals, 
 From their repulsive forms to trace 
 The painful progress of his race, 
 So in that age whose law is love, 
 The usurer's skull he '11 hunt to prove 
 The advance, the arch of thought has made 
 Since Man upon his fellow preyed. 
 
 As the sun's fervid scorching glare 
 
 Is mellowed in the ambient air, 
 
 And red, intolerable heat 
 
 Is through earth's mediator light. 
 
 They who have reached that height sublime, 
 
 Unselfish love alone can climb, 
 
 Whence crystal hearts, undimmed, transmit 
 
 The radiance of the Infinite, 
 
 Attempering for human gaze 
 
 Its dazzling and unclouded blaze, 
 
 Until eternal wisdom gleams 
 
 Throughout their world-reforming schemes, 
 
 And through the caverns of the soul 
 
 Light's waves in undulations roll, 
 
What the Thinkers teach. 307 
 
 That human eyes, beyond the void 
 Dazed, blinded by creative God. 
 May see in Rainbow and its shower 
 Th' Eternal Lover, and adore. 
 
 They all, one voiced, to Man proclaim 
 Earth's "glory" is but Heaven's shame, 
 And highest thought in every age 
 Its protest writes on History's page, 
 Moaning the miseries self-brought 
 Which Ignorance thro' Law has wrought. 
 
 The immortal Galaxy of mind, 
 By Love, from lust of gold refined, 
 Cry to their fellows from their height, 
 To spurn all compromise for Right. 
 A bridge would span the dread abyss 
 'Twixt world of woe and world of bliss 
 To overturn from base to tower 
 The moated citadels of power, 
 Till He, whose right it is, shall come, 
 And God in Man the world illume. 
 To rear Love's all-embracing dome, 
 And make the radiant earth, fit home 
 For Life enfranchised from the cells 
 Of gloom and want, in which he dwells, 
 By dragging Heaven from the sky 
 'Tis hidden in by piety, 
 With human consanguinity. 
 
 To cease, the old with new to mend ; 
 Reason with cruel creed to blend ; 
 
308 Destruction must precede Reform. 
 
 New law on old, is greater curse, 
 
 New cloth on old, the rent grows worse. 
 
 That no reform will kill the weed 
 
 Till deadened root prevent its seed. 
 
 That cataclysms must destroy 
 
 All systems which give Greed employ. 
 
 That Labor's reign, by him, abhorred, 
 
 On Mammon's peace must bring the sword, 
 
 And Revolution's torrents flood 
 
 The dismal trophies of the proud, 
 
 Till, as from chaos sprang the earth 
 
 Wierd anarchy evolves her birth, 
 
 To realize the dream of God 
 
 In Universal Brotherhood. 
 
 As in the days when Time was young, 
 Th' Angelic hosts, in wonder hung 
 Over a mist-hid shrieking world, 
 Whose elemental warfare whirled 
 Slow forming matter thro' long night , 
 While soul informed chaotic might ; 
 And saw, with eyes that pierced the gloom, 
 The struggling forces, shape assume, 
 And each, no longer, law resist, 
 Balanced by its antagonist, 
 Till earth, of nebula evolved, 
 Secret of dateless contest solved. 
 
 So thro' Hope's prism Man may see 
 The glory of his destiny. 
 Beyond this atmosphere of Hate 
 See Infinite Love, all-patient, wait 
 
Lovers victory. 309 
 
 Till his light, moral glooms dispel, 
 Till discords into harmony swell, 
 Till Mind the eternal law obeys 
 Which now, obedient Matter sways, 
 By free-will driven on her road, 
 Aye gravitating to her God. 
 
 Beyond these wintry, watery wastes 
 
 Tormented by opposing blasts, 
 
 Gleams in glad light the sunny strand 
 
 Of Man's long sought, bright Promised-Land, 
 
 In Summer seas it smiling lies 
 
 O'erarched by radiant cloudless skies. 
 
 And o'er it beams his natal star 
 
 Who died because he hoped it near. 
 
 There dinted swords are beat to shares ; 
 There pruning hooks are made of spears ; 
 The horrid panoply of war 
 The mother's he.art affrights no more ; 
 There the bright spade and glittering hoe 
 Honors on their staunch wielders throw ; 
 There Labor, from his clustering vine 
 Drinks sweetened joy in draughts divine^; 
 And 'neath the spreading fig tree's shade, 
 None dares molest or make afraid. 
 There free as air, the fruitful soil 
 Yields daily bread to sturdy toil. 
 Throughout that land is no distress 
 For each owns all, and none oppress. 
 For virtue thrives on plenty's food. 
 'Tis happiness that makes men good. 
 
810 The realm of Love. 
 
 There the unpardonable sin 
 
 Is not committed at fourteen, 
 
 And the girl-mother's reckless love 
 
 Virtue will but to pity move. 
 
 For sinless love no shame incurs 
 
 When it forgives the love that errs. 
 
 Maternity is sacred there, 
 
 And bosoms, dripping nectar, fear 
 
 No poisoned sting of verjuiced prude 
 
 Poisoning the milk of motherhood. 
 
 Such virtue is but ripened sin, 
 
 And hatred nestles in its grin. 
 
 There virgin hearts, love blended, mate, 
 
 And nobler forms of Man create, 
 
 In bliss, beyond delight, bestowed 
 
 When Nature swoons to incarnate God. 
 
 There withered age with gold can't buy 
 False oaths of wedded infamy, 
 From blooming youth, to see them blest 
 By chuckling, leering, waiting priest. 
 No convents thro' green sickness leer 
 At psederastic monks who sneer 
 I^ust-satisfied, tho' Nature charms 
 With heaving bust, and clinging arms. 
 
 Of horror in its nursery, 
 Love dies, that brings forth jealousy, 
 For self-love feeds the monstrous birth 
 And leaves its mother die of dearth. 
 Pure love is barren of such bane, 
 Its object 's pleasure gives no pain. 
 
Development the business of life. 311 
 
 There he who sows, his harvest reaps, 
 And thieves unfearing, smiling sleeps, 
 Wakes with the dawn, to hear his soul 
 Join the gay songsters' glad carol, 
 And see the dancing lord of life, 
 Pour morning's raptures thro' his wife. 
 
 No children, there, for kisses pine, 
 
 With cheeks uncolored by the wine 
 
 The heart expresses from the lips, 
 
 That blooming love in rapture sips. 
 
 The blasted intellectual germs 
 
 With which the city gutter swarms, 
 
 And in Man's nostrils, stenchful, rot 
 
 As gambler, prostitute, and sot, 
 
 Love's laws transplant to genial soil 
 
 Whose sun of science shines for all. 
 
 The Nation's wards, all children, there 
 
 An equal education share. 
 
 And Man will harvest mind, where now 
 
 Thro' pauperism runs no plow 
 
 To turn to light the moral waste 
 
 Where prowls, for pence the red-gilled priest, 
 
 Whence brute-jawed, pimpled demagogues 
 
 Drive voters as a herdsman hogs, 
 
 Squeaking for swill from tax-heaped trough, 
 
 Until the ballot-box, the scoff 
 
 Of Honor, and the Public Shame, 
 
 To office Hesing spues, or Rehm. 
 
 There hoarded wealth and gold unearned 
 By the enfranchised mind are spurned, 
 
312 Idleness criminal. 
 
 And given to Love, lest they betray 
 
 Their owner's sordid ancestry. 
 
 For Wealth that 's limited to use 
 
 Invests for Man its overplus, 
 
 Nor seeks to add to Misery's pain 
 
 By flaunting in his eyes the gain 
 
 Whose excess marks the depths of woe, 
 
 As metres on the Nilus show 
 
 The distance 'twixt the height of flood, 
 
 And the unsunned, miasma'd mud. 
 
 No pestilence in that hallowed air ; 
 
 No famine's victims perish there, 
 
 Of daily hunger, guilty, fed 
 
 For crime of rags, on prison bread ; 
 
 No gallows' baleful shade is thrown 
 
 Where Law makes Life its wrongs atone, 
 
 And Mercy sits in Justice throne. 
 
 Crime scarce exists where Idleness, 
 Source of all ills, meets just duress, 
 For venom from the poisoned brain 
 Toil's beaded drops will swiftly drain ; 
 Brave muscle, trained to honest work, 
 For robbery disdains to lurk. 
 
 Law over Man omnipotent, 
 Upon the race has forced content, 
 Has granted Agur's prayer, refused 
 For ages while he Heaven amused ; 
 Soon answered when the Socialist, 
 Changed begging palm, to forceful fist. 
 
Persuasion supersedes Force. 813 
 
 In that glad land, no drones survive ; 
 For joyful earth is Labor's hive. 
 There Liberty no limit knows 
 Save in the duties that it owes ; 
 And each man's freedom has no bounds 
 Save when on others' rights it trends. 
 Man-eaters fly that happy shore, 
 For Usury's griping reign is o'er. 
 
 There the Inventor sees his pain 
 
 Rewarded in his fellows' gain, 
 
 And freely scatters wide the prize 
 
 From Nature won, by thoughtful eyes, 
 
 Feeling the pleasure of a God, 
 
 To know he 's lightened Labor's load. 
 
 There lengthened life the wisdom showers 
 
 On Man, which long experience stores, 
 
 And bloom must venerate age, whose mind 
 
 Ne'er casts reluctant look behind ; 
 
 For all vitality of youth 
 
 Glows in gray heads that seek but truth. 
 
 Where Love's Lawgiver, women rule 
 
 Man to his baby goes to school, 
 
 And learns to ope the wondering eyes 
 
 Of Reason on the mysteries 
 
 Of Life and Fate, and painful spells 
 
 What heart, that with Love's current swells 
 
 Reads easily as a b c, 
 
 Kissing her dandled deity, 
 
 Lisping the lore of Heaven to pay 
 
 Her nectar-brimming roundelay. 
 
 21 
 
314 After the deluge Ararat. 
 
 No language can that age adorn, 
 Which sees a new Messiah born 
 In every child whose instincts rise 
 Thro' progress to the waiting skies ; 
 There Man has bowed to Nature's sway 
 And learned " To Labor, is to Pray." 
 
 Utopian fool ! Let dullards sneer, 
 Man needs but will, that Land is here. 
 For Labor in fraternal force 
 To-day might follow Mammon's hearse, 
 If, free from Faith and Appetite, 
 Reason aid Nature's tireless fight. 
 
 Let him but know that any change 
 
 Gives hope a freer, wider range, 
 
 That even defeat can add no bane 
 
 To the unending, gnawing pain 
 
 He must endure thro' Mammon's reign, 
 
 The turbid waters of the deep 
 
 Will from their rocky caverns leap, 
 
 To meet the angry torrents thrown 
 
 Thro' Heaven's wide oriels oped to drown 
 
 With the blent wrath of Man and God, 
 
 Earth crazed by Creed, consumed by Fraud, 
 
 Behold his Ararat appears 
 
 Quick rising thro' the surging years, 
 
 And o'er it, shimmering rainbows play 
 
 God's promise of a brighter day. 
 
 Who cannot see, in Nature's throe 
 Is force, persistent, born of woe. 
 
The wrath of Nature the result of crime. 815 
 
 The foetid breath of horrid Wai- 
 Pours poisons thro' the shuddering air, 
 As over earth his cohorts drag 
 Famine and fever, cholera, plague, 
 To glean the fields from which his wain 
 Has harvested his blasted grain. 
 And* who dare say, the lava stream 
 That rends her crust with lurid gleam, 
 To whelm the town whence Hate's flame drained 
 Love's oxygen, while terror reigned, 
 As monstrous Crime, from caverns dun 
 Broke rampant, leaping in the sun ; 
 The earthquake's wide engulphing wave 
 Sweeping a coast to flooded grave, 
 So washing clean with vengeful tide 
 The face of Nature, grimed, and dyed 
 By sempiternal fratricide ; 
 The forceful hurricanes that blend 
 With earth the affrighted clouds, and rend 
 In blind destruction's hideous roar 
 The growth of centuries in an hour ; 
 Aye, Arctic snows, and torrid heats, 
 Whence Nature-conquered Man retreats ; 
 Find each and all, no parentage 
 In his insane, demoniac rage. 
 
 Force indestructible, of Hate 
 In frenzied souls, may generate 
 The kindred force that fills the heart 
 Of Nature, as she makes her sport 
 In sweeping from her path the clown, 
 Who will not wear her proffered crown. 
 
816 Intellect limitless, 
 
 Force correlates, and who dare say 
 
 That under Love's continuous sway 
 
 Glad Earth would not grow kind and sweet, 
 
 To be a habitation, meet 
 
 For Man in Jesus' simple school 
 
 Taught how to live the " Golden Rule." 
 
 Unstained by envy, lust, or rage, 
 
 More gentle in his hoary age, 
 
 Than when the babe, with beaming eyes 
 
 Answered his mother's ecstacies, 
 
 As rosy, patting palms caressed 
 
 The violet of her velvet breast. 
 
 No miracle can Nature know, 
 
 But higher force in embryo 
 
 Stirs in her womb, as growth destroys 
 
 The consequents of lower laws. 
 
 And as the microscope is rife 
 
 With infinite forms of lower life, 
 
 Immensities of mysteries 
 
 Even in a rain-drop man descries, 
 
 Unseen by dull barbarian eyes, 
 
 So Reason shows to quickened mind 
 
 A Force in Nature, far beyond 
 
 The narrow limits thought can strain, 
 
 Fettered in her material brain. 
 
 Mind knows no measure ; 'tis as far 
 From soul to soul as star to star. 
 Th' immensities within unfold 
 Wide as the arches that uphold 
 The Universal dome. For Man 
 Earth's only God in Nature's plan, 
 What line can Matter use to span. 
 
Feeding on G-od. 317 
 
 Mind from the centre grows; its root 
 Draws sap from God, and love its fruit, 
 Repress, distort, or crush, or blind, 
 Man may he cannot form a mind. 
 Of matter born, it must revert 
 Its food denied, to native dirt. 
 But vital, glowing with the food 
 It blooms on, drawn direct from God, 
 What tongue has matter to portray 
 Its fruit that cannot know decay ; 
 Where find the words to frame in speech 
 Its ever widening, flowering reach. 
 
 Reason can only inward gaze, 
 
 As consequent new cause displays, 
 
 And recognize in loving awe 
 
 The changing but persistent law, 
 
 Which thro' all Nature's veins must course 
 
 As lower yields to higher force ; 
 
 As Nature trills the requiem 
 
 Of brute strength touched by Love's soft palm, 
 
 Science can backward trace the day 
 When Man on Nature's bosom lay, 
 The weakest, puniest, most abashed, 
 Of all her offspring ; 'round him clashed 
 Huge, raging, reckless monsters, mailed, 
 None shrank from conflict, all assailed ; 
 War was earth's normal state, no love 
 Save what in his base intellect strove 
 And gasping, lived, thro' wild debate 
 Of envy, jealousy and hate, 
 In his starved soul, so close akin 
 
818 The infancy of Man. 
 
 Was he to the uncouth machine, 
 One in its selfishness, tho' shaped 
 In countless forms of life, that gaped 
 Its rending jaws, that death might wake 
 Digested, and new substance take, 
 Then the dread increment employ 
 Again to ravage, and destroy. 
 
 He saw her elder births outvie 
 
 His knowledge, skill, and energy, 
 
 But each in savage solitude 
 
 Prowled for its prey, and gnawed its food, 
 
 So he, gregarious, banded, slew 
 
 The monsters no one dared pursue. 
 
 He saw himself for aeons creep 
 
 Upon the earth, by sufferance ; sleep 
 
 In treetops or in holes encaved, 
 
 His life a fear, by terror saved. 
 
 His little spark of love increased, 
 
 He grew a Socialist, and massed 
 
 His forces for the long affray 
 
 'Twixt life and death, health and decay. 
 
 For self-defence, at first he fought, 
 Then gaining courage, foes he sought 
 Even in their lairs, and field by field, 
 And league by league his Empire swelled. 
 
 Earth aids his efforts. (She abhorred 
 The rebels that opposed her lord.) 
 And with a changing axis clears 
 
His growth and conquest. 319 
 
 His pathway from her mutineers. 
 Aye, drowned herself for love, to rise 
 From out the floods with glistening eyes. 
 Swimming with rapture, as she saw 
 Their bloated corpses 'venge her law. 
 Then purer skies, and sweeter air 
 Gave progress force, as Man, the heir 
 Of all she earned by suicide, 
 She throned supreme in laughing pride. 
 
 Now, shall the Universal King, 
 
 His arms, his trophies, empire, fling 
 
 To lycanthropes, whose banded claws 
 
 Tear out his life by creeds, and laws ; 
 
 Before these Frankensteins he made 
 
 Soul-slayers by the laws of Trade ; 
 
 Hew out a cavern, and a tomb 
 
 For thought, and leave his realm in gloom ; 
 
 Forswear his birthright and abjure 
 
 Its laws of primogeniture. 
 
 Is he Earth's conqueror, who share 
 Of conflict would weak courage spare ? 
 Who moans about a wicked world 
 Safe in a phalanstery curled, 
 And from its fruitful laziness, 
 Blinks sapient, at the wilderness 
 Where man-made monsters supersede. 
 The fossil foes whose jaws affrayed 
 His weapons when their gnashing foam 
 Flung terror thro' his childhood's home. 
 Who sees his brothers galled and torn, 
 
320 The world-abjured s treason. 
 
 By fell machinery overborne, 
 And begs them in his cave to hide 
 Far from the ken and clutch of pride. 
 Who cries, " Stir not the fire with sword," 
 " Echo in storms should be adored," 
 Fly from the world and leave to lust 
 Nature's donation to the just ? 
 
 Who as he into pity melts, 
 Whines of a kingdom somewhere else, 
 Where he, who proves himself unfit 
 On Earth to reign, on throne may sit 
 Throughout eternity, and date 
 His glory, from his shamed defeat. 
 
 Pride's slaves would quickly garrison 
 Man's battle field, already won. 
 How long would phalansteries stand 
 On Mammon's desolated land ? 
 The weaponless on earth are stalled, 
 Or dance with ankles fetter-galled ; 
 No children Nature grants but Huns, 
 To world escaping monks and nuns, 
 For Nature at a coward scares, 
 And Love must fight, to live in heirs. 
 
 Is he Earth's conquerer, who slinks 
 Back to his cave, before this Sphynx ? 
 This loveless intellect, bred by force, 
 Its limbs, machines, its brains a purse, 
 Its head the Counting House, that stares 
 With stony eyes at sepulchers 
 
The Sphynx in his desert. 321 
 
 It robs of shroud and memory's stone, 
 Regretful tear, and mourner's moan. 
 Its body those who 're filled with all 
 That appetite can please or pall 
 Which moveless, unprogressive lies, 
 Flabby with lazy luxuries, 
 Fed to repletion by the laws 
 Revealed in profit-clutching claws ; 
 Which glares across a world of sand, 
 Unfertilized by its command, 
 To guard the pyramids which cant 
 For power has built on human want. 
 This fiend that gnaws the human soul, 
 That hell has christened, u Capital" 
 Who stands as Sentinel for Time 
 O'er all the hoards of legal crime 
 And shivers as it feels the breath 
 Of angry Love exhale its death. 
 
 Not he. For Nature disavows 
 Her offspring, if she see his brows 
 Despoiled of majesty, disgraced 
 By serfdom, and by power debased. 
 
 An Instinct born can never die. 
 Man's growth demands Fraternity ; 
 Fraternity where Greed 's coerced, 
 Fraternity by Law enforced, 
 By that he's glad earth's potentate : 
 By that he '11 conquer human hate. 
 What can oppose his empire, or 
 Resist, the grand Self-Conqueror ! 
 
322 "Rise and Walk." 
 
 That little spark of Love 's a flame 
 Beyond the power of lust to tame. 
 It shall the world of mind baptise 
 To higher aims and new emprise, 
 Vengeance is but wronged Nature's flood, 
 Which drowns the base and thrones the good, 
 'Tis God in Man upholds the fight. 
 Else how could Love quell Hatred's might. 
 
 The palsy-smitten, helpless lay 
 
 Nor would his limbs his thought obey, 
 
 As normal strength's electric leap 
 
 Though drowsy nerves could scarcely creep. 
 
 Till Will their torpor broke and sent 
 
 The brain's swift force to its intent. 
 
 No fears need Man 1 s fruition balk 
 
 'Tis G-od has spoken, "Rise and Walk." 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF DEATH. 
 
 Death held a Festival, and called 
 
 His vassals round his throne ; 
 Prostrate before their King they sprawled, 
 
 And showed their trophies won. 
 
 Within his low-arched, coffin-shaped, 
 
 Noisome, sepulchral hall, 
 The dismal, stenchful horrors, gaped 
 
 At its long table's spoil. 
 
 'Twas framed of molten, burnished gold, 
 
 Inlaid with skulls and bones 
 Mossy with age, and green with mold, 
 
 All set as precious stones. 
 
 
 Lit by the shimmering gloom that pales 
 
 From phosphorous decay, 
 
 Each minister of Hate regales 
 
 Upon his neighbor's prey. 
 
 Each clutched at cates beyond his reach ; 
 
 Oft in one dish their claws 
 All met, as each made haste to snatch 
 
 A tit-bit for his jaws. 
 
324 The Festival of Death. 
 
 a Ho ! War," the monarch cried, " What hast 
 Thou, my tried liegeman, to report ? 
 
 The vultures, have they had their feast, 
 As Kings engaged in royal sport?" 
 
 u Scant fare, my liege ; in Africa 
 Some thousands, British and Zulu 
 
 Some Afghans, too, are turned to clay, 
 Some sped from Chili and Peru." 
 
 But here, my sisters, 't were a stain 
 
 Should they receive my meed of praise, 
 
 For gleaning fields from which my wain 
 Rich harvests dragged to glut thy jaws. 
 
 " Fear not, my trusty; well We know 
 They fatten on the food you leave. 
 
 Hail, Carrion-Maker ! thy first blow 
 Did my first gain on earth achieve." 
 
 kt And I," screamed Famine, " this year toiled 
 
 In Cnina, Egypt and Brazil ; 
 Millions of happy hearths I 've spoiled 
 
 Wherein my brothers shewed no skill I" 
 
 " Behind them both, with sister's love," 
 
 Bawled Pestilence, " I 've searching, prowled, 
 
 And to thy realm in myriads drove 
 The refuse of the lands they fouled." 
 
 Then bloated Vice sprang out and cried, 
 " My prey I 've found beyond their reach. 
 
The Festival of Death. 825 
 
 They strike the low, I rend the proud ; 
 Let Suicide attend my speech." 
 
 " Hear all diseases born of me, 
 
 Their mother's loyalty declare, 
 Glutting themselves on progeny, 
 
 Which I with poisoned blood prepare." 
 
 Crime cursed " I 've been with all the rest ; 
 
 With me they work, though Law denies, 
 And steals their laurels from my crest, 
 
 As Glory, Murder sanctifies. 
 
 " Yet loyal am I to my king ; 
 
 Each year adds increase to my slaves. 
 See ! I my annual off 'ring bring, 
 
 Increasing as Law fiercer raves." 
 
 Death's rattling jaws attest his glee, 
 As their grim records prove their zeal. 
 
 " Step forth, my youngest born ! " cried he, 
 " We wait, impatient, for your tale." 
 
 Smooth gliding upon slippered feet, 
 With greasy face, lack-lustre smile, 
 
 With low-toned, creeping voice, as meet 
 For him who lives by legal guile. 
 
 Trade-Competition made advance 
 Before the eager-hearkening throng, 
 
 Each felt contempt in every glance 
 His dead eye on their weapons flung. 
 
326 The Festival of Death. 
 
 44 Short-lived are they, whose hollow eyes 
 Search hopelessly to find a trace 
 
 Thro' all my swarming factories, 
 
 Hell's proudest universities 
 
 Of Bounty's hand, or Pity's face." 
 
 "Ah ! He 's myself," howled War; 44 his eye 
 Like mine, is always cold and dry." 
 
 44 1 herd them close in low-ceiled rooms, 
 I twist them with routine of Toil, 
 
 I force them tire my whirring looms, 
 
 I shelter them by night in tombs, 
 
 Garbage their bread and grease their oil." 
 
 44 He 's in my house," screamed Pestilence. 
 44 Oh ! Sister, sniff his balmy scents." 
 
 44 From work that starves I see them fly 
 
 To brothel, beggary and jail, 
 At less than Nature's cost I buy 
 Man, fed and sheltered, I defy, 
 
 And Bankrupt always, never fail." 
 
 44 That's me ! " squeaked Famine ; u I also 
 Am fullest when I emptiest show ! " 
 
 44 1 keep a shop upon the mart 
 
 That's thickest thronged. I undersell ! 
 
 All Science aids me and all Art. 
 
 With rich Thrift I my profits part 
 
 Who throngs when e'er he hears my yell." 
 
The Festival of Death. 327 
 
 Tis I !" shrieked Vice ; "I halve the gold 
 When Virtue 's in the market sold." 
 
 4 ' Cheaper than cheapest ! Loud I roar, 
 
 Until Economy 's dismayed, 
 And poor men throng my widening door 
 Whose saving robs the other poor, 
 
 By whom their cheapened goods were made." 
 
 " Me !" grumbled Crime; "his step, his air, 
 His tongue, voice, gesture, all declare 
 Me ! Lo, his smile is murder's sheath, 
 My lineage is he not, O ! Death? " 
 
 Death answer croaked, " The thin disguise 
 That solemn leering Law applies 
 Screens you, in him, from Justice' arm; 
 
 As 4 Profit' lulls her ear 
 His victim falls, and no alarm 
 
 Rings from his plodding bier. 
 
 " 'Tis Noise makes sleepy Justice rave, 
 And " Profit" digs a quiet grave, 
 As dust Man on her balance lies 
 
 When gold upon the scale 
 Outweighs his murmuring miseries, 
 
 And jeers his puling wail. 
 
 "We know you as we champ the fruit 
 Of Thrift, and taste its sapful root." 
 
828 The Festival of Death. 
 
 War stroked his broad clothed arm, half-dazed 
 To see its strength his engines mock ; 
 
 Famine caressed him, as amazed 
 She saw men die of Over-stock. 
 
 Blotched Pestilence hugged him, as she smelt 
 
 Her foetid odors in his coat, 
 And Vice, with stranger rapture felt 
 
 Her veiled glance on him, side-long gloat. 
 
 Crime at his feet sat, pondering scheme 
 
 How to a palace change his cell ; 
 From all Hell's weaker brood a scream 
 
 Of joy did through the cavern peal. 
 
 Death's bony hands clapped loud applause 
 As each fiend yelled, "He 's mine! He 's 
 
 mine 
 
 He 's blent with me by Human Laws, 
 His triumphs are of my design." 
 
 Yet louder clangor broke, when Death 
 " In him I have combined you all ! 
 
 The Poor are meat for Luxury's teeth, 
 And Man again is Cannibal!" 
 
THE BEGGAR. 
 
 Toil-bent, decrepid, old and gaunt, 
 
 With shaking head, hair, thin and white, 
 
 Gross-featured, marred by vice and want. 
 Behold his fellows shun the sight 
 
 Think jostling on the crowded pave, 
 Nor note him, abject, vermin-rife, 
 
 Dumbly, importunately crave 
 
 A few more days of tottering life. 
 
 To his eyes, rheumy, bleared, half-blind, 
 Remote and indistinct the throng ; 
 
 His ears no differ apprehend 
 
 'T \vixt plaint of pain and joyous song. 
 
 What was his life, whose greasy hat 
 Gapes thus, to earn his bitter bread ? 
 
 This blur on sunny days, whose lot 
 Is hungry dotage, garbage fed. 
 
 This product of a teeming land 
 
 Where squalor must bejborn of crime ; 
 
 Whose misery drives him thus to vend 
 For charity his rags and grime. 
 
 His. occupation marks each inan, 
 The plastic body yields to use ; 
 
 22 
 
330 The Beggar. 
 
 Each toiler bears his trade-mark plain, 
 Nature's revenge for life's abuse. 
 
 On this decayed and shapeless wreck 
 
 Is graven deep the life he led ; 
 Unequal shoulders, awry neck, 
 
 A high-drawn calf, on leg unfed. 
 
 His pliant thumb and prone-held palm, 
 Extensors strong and flexors weak, 
 
 His indrawn, callous knees, shrunk ham, 
 Of long hours over-working speak. 
 
 Reveal a worn out shoe-shop wright, 
 
 Society has cast away, 
 Dead in all else, but appetite 
 
 Insatiate as the gulfing sea. 
 
 The bulbous nose, the shapeless mouth, 
 The scars which drunken riot gave, 
 
 The blood-shot eyes, aglow with drouth, 
 Show him, of Alcohol the slave. 
 
 He should have saved his hard-earned wage ? 
 
 His brain, dulled by incessant toil, 
 Lost forecast to provide for age, 
 
 Robbed of all power of self-control. 
 
 From us temptation be removed 
 
 Should be, not prayer for Man, but Law. 
 For self-defence too weak he proved, 
 
 His scant wage fed his tempter's maw. 
 
The Beggar. 331 
 
 Where Crime is legal, there is Hell ; 
 
 Here, where Law's brutal segis fends 
 Who poisons to their fellows sell, 
 
 Love's eyes behold a race of fiends 
 
 Furloughed a space to deal in rum, 
 And fit their victims for despair, 
 
 While saints, excited, buzz and hum, 
 
 And strive to wash them clean by prayer. 
 
 Who enters, bids adieu to hope ; 
 
 So see the blind, dazed blighted soul, 
 Shorn of angelic kinship, grope 
 
 Down to the second death, his goal. 
 
 While the fat banker drones his psalms 
 And gloats o'er fatter dividends, 
 
 Besotted Labor's horny palms 
 Applaud him leader of mankind. 
 
 His wealth by usury exacts 
 
 From Labor's plunderers equal shares, 
 His pious character protects 
 
 In sanctity of law their lairs. 
 
 They who, untoiling live on Toil 
 
 Our drones, control and rule our hive, 
 
 Can Man, when robbed of Nature's spoil 
 Under their law and guidance thrive ! 
 
 Thus blinks with its lack-lustre eye 
 In doting age, Law's finished job, 
 
332 The Beggar. 
 
 Millions of prayers may storm the sky, 
 They 're worthless as a baby's sob. 
 
 Ye workers who behold this hulk 
 
 Wrecked on fell Mammon's sterile strand, 
 
 By licensed crime and overwork 
 Extend for alms its palsied hand. 
 
 To the deaf Heavens no longer pray 
 To right your wrongs or aid your right, 
 
 Your sturdy arms can hew their way 
 
 From these dark glooms to cheerful light. 
 
 From this grim foetid lesson learn 
 
 The power that holds you under sway : 
 
 With votes as levers overturn 
 
 This head of gold and feet of clay. 
 
 At croaking fossils laugh in scorn 
 
 Who dread your use of power you take, 
 
 And you of ills unnumbered warn 
 Should Mammon's brazen altar shake. 
 
 Lest your doom be this bitter end 
 
 Rend from his grasping hand his spoil. 
 
 Love will be Victor when the fiend 
 
 Yields to Free Men, their right, Free Soil. 
 
UNDER THE HARROW. 
 
 Life is hopeless. I 'm hungry and poor ; 
 
 My wages won't furnish me food ; 
 And this foetid and poisonous air 
 
 Is mildewing me, tainting my blood. 
 
 My children grow stunted and thin, 
 Gaunt, bony and scraggy my wife ; 
 
 The vile tenement-house I live in 
 Is buzzing with discord and strife. 
 
 And must we, the creators of wealth, 
 Starve amid the abundance we earn, 
 
 While our babes, bred in squalor and filth 
 To thieves, pimps and prostitutes turn ? 
 
 Are my ills from God or from Man ? 
 
 Did I sin when I loved and begot, 
 That my children lie under a ban, 
 
 And my wife is, as wife of a sot ? 
 
 What was it the Crucified meant 
 
 When to men of glad tidings he spoke, 
 
 That they of their food or their raiment 
 No thought for the morrow should take. 
 
 Don't we make our own chains by the law, 
 Granting, " Profit " and Usury spoil 
 
334 Under the Harrow. 
 
 Of the wealth that we painfully draw 
 From the desert of earth by our toil? 
 
 Well ! the galley-slave chained to the oar 
 Broods vengeance while under the whip : 
 
 In his dreams, revels, lapping hot gore, 
 When awake, plans to scuttle the ship. 
 
 When men suffer shipwreck afloat 
 
 Cruel days on the pitiless main, 
 Share and share to each man in the boat 
 
 The scant store is portioned in pain. 
 
 The wretch not a Socialist then, 
 
 But found munching his secreted hoard, 
 
 With stern jeers would be tossed in the brine, 
 And his victual divided aboard. 
 
 The world suffers shipwrecks in trade, 
 
 While its lockers are bursting with bread : 
 
 Stokers starved, and the passengers cloyed ! 
 Must we be mutineers to be fed f 
 
THE LOGICAL CATERPILLAR. 
 
 to Hon. J. Medill 
 
 Upon a green and luscious leaf 
 
 A caterpillar sat, 
 And passed a cheerful, happy life, 
 
 Accumulating fat, 
 And gazed with appetizing glee 
 Upon the tall and spreading tree, 
 Its gorgeous wealth of rustling green, 
 Irradiate with shimmering sheen. 
 
 "All this," the caterpillar said, 
 
 "Was made for me alone ; 
 To furnish me in food 'twas made ; 
 
 What I can't eat, I own. 
 And God who gave it will direct 
 Me, the best manner to protect 
 The goods his boundless bounty gave, 
 From every hungry, tramping knave." 
 
 Below him, crawling in the dust, 
 
 A grovelling centipede 
 Wailing, " I cannot think it just, 
 
 All that, to feed his greed ; 
 While I, who can assimilate 
 As well as he, the leaves I eat 
 Must perish in this hopeless plight 
 
 Unable to obtain a bite. 
 
336 The Logical Caterpillar. 
 
 " I wither in this heated sand, 
 
 O ! give me but a leaf ! 
 The God of Love requites the hand 
 
 That brings the poor, relief." 
 The caterpillar's eyes were damp 
 With pity as he gave the tramp 
 A strychnined leaf, and saw him die 
 In wiggling, wriggling agony. 
 
 " He 's better dead," 
 
 The mourner said, 
 "And so may all tramps die ; 
 
 But as for me, 
 
 I '11 eat this tree 
 And be a butterfly." 
 
FORWARD! 
 
 Blind paths we poor mortals wearily wander on ; 
 
 Whither we go, no wisdom can foresee ; 
 Naught in the record of ages to ponder on, 
 
 Our future the sage has no data to prophecy. 
 
 When erst, in the strife decimating the Nation, 
 We blazoned our banners with " Freedom for 
 
 All!" 
 
 Did we fight to submit to this last degradation, 
 To, supine and nerveless, before traitors fall ? 
 Has God, in stern justice, laid on us the curse, 
 That each struggle for Progress shall leave us the 
 worse ? 
 
 Have we painfully waded in gloom and despond, 
 Through that Red Sea, to reach Freedom's mirage 
 beyond ? 
 
 But to crouch once again 
 
 'Neath these traders in men, 
 And sigh in dull patience, while Liberty's hearse 
 
 Is trailed to her grave 
 
 By the hands of a knave 
 
 White-blooded, bound-thrall of the power of the 
 Purse ? 
 
 But to herd in dismay on this pestilent shore, 
 Nauseated and faint with the odor of gore, 
 Where the Bulldozer's whip whistles shrill in the air, 
 And its dull thud responds to a Patriot's prayer ? 
 
338 Forward! 
 
 (The weapon which forced from the hard hands of 
 
 Toil 
 
 Unpaid labor of men, like dumb beasts of the stall, 
 Now drags from the Freedman's hoarse, unwilling- 
 throat, 
 
 'Mid shrieks unavailing, a promise to vote.) 
 Like a flock, when at midnight the wolf's howl is near. 
 Stand we trembling, appalled and exsanguine, with 
 
 fear, 
 
 While the halls of our servants resound with that yell 
 Which from hearts bursting hate rings the echoes of 
 Hell? 
 
 No ! Beyond these bleak deserts 
 
 This serf-accursed soil, 
 Lies the Promised Land, brimming 
 
 With wine and with oil, 
 Where swords are beat to plowshares 
 
 Spears pruning hooks are made, 
 Where, 'neath their teeming vines and figs, 
 
 In dulcet summer-shade, 
 Rest the heroes who creating wield 
 
 The hammer and the spade, 
 No prowling packs of hell-hounds 
 
 To molest or make^ afraid ; 
 Where the calcium-light of a free press 
 
 Throws the broad glare of day 
 On the dense darkness which conceals 
 
 These ravening beasts of prey ! 
 Where Freedmen shall be Freemen, 
 
 And Labor, in its might, 
 Shall use for dung the trampled corse 
 
 Of the dog that yowls at Right. 
 
Forward! 339 
 
 Can we reach it? We can. Will we reach it? 
 
 We must. 
 For the blood of our martyrs calls fierce from their 
 
 dust : 
 
 4% Ye are craven to suffer serf-labor to till 
 Where we lie unshrouded at Andersonville." 
 
 Answer their angry frowning shades 
 
 With a ringing, loud Hurrah ! 
 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Freemen's rights, 
 
 For Honor, and for Law ! 
 
 In all conflicts of the ages, 
 
 It the Patriot's pulse has stirred, 
 Like ocean's grand resounding surge, 
 
 It purifies the world. 
 'Tis Freedom's diapason in 
 
 The harmon}^ of Law, 
 Its echoes swell through fainting hearts 
 
 As flame through tindered straw. 
 When Rupert's Horse went right about 
 
 It answered Cromwell's cry 
 " With bayonets ! Boys ! Trust in the Lord ! 
 
 And keep your powder dry !" 
 Thro' the long Winter's night it broke 
 
 Above the ceaseless dirge 
 That crooned around their shivering ranks 
 
 Who starved at Valley Forge. 
 Its might re-formed the shattered files 
 
 That turned with Sheridan, 
 And tramped to victory thro' defeat 
 
 Across the crimsoned plain. 
 
340 Forward! 
 
 Aye ! drown with joyous, hearty cheers, 
 
 The piping catawaul 
 Which squeals its feeble frenzied wrath 
 
 Against our Northern gale. 
 They did not fear it when it shrieked 
 
 From half a million throats, 
 But put it down with might and main 
 
 When bayonets were votes ! 
 Now shall the van of Progress be 
 
 Affrighted or dismayed, 
 When Rebel shrieks in dismal squeaks 
 
 Call us to retrograde ? 
 
 No backward step ! but Forward ! 
 
 Until, in every State, 
 All the people, for the people, 
 
 By the people legislate, 
 And unrelenting Justice yield 
 
 Unknown, unpitied graves 
 To the carcasses of traitors 
 
 Who Freemen treat as slaves. 
 
THE ENGINE AND THE " COO. 
 
 A man of the people once telling his tale 
 
 Of the power of his engine when placed on the Rail, 
 
 Of the speed it would make, of the freight it would 
 
 pull, 
 Was asked by a solemn old fossil John Bull : 
 
 " But what, my dear sir, would the consequence 
 
 prove, 
 
 Should a cow on the track ever happen to rove, 
 And the wagons, impelled at this furious speed, . 
 Should happen, good ged ! with that cow to 
 
 collide ? " 
 
 The sturdy old cove with contemptuous grin, 
 Thro' his hard visage gleaming the chuckle within, 
 Said " Me Lord, in sic case I maun surely alloo, 
 'Twad be bad for the coo, sir, dom'd bad for the coo." 
 
 * ****** * 
 
 Thro' the smoke of the battles, the storm clouds of 
 
 war, 
 
 Gleams refulgent, the head-light of Liberty's car, 
 As it speeds o'er the track whose each sleeper and 
 
 tie 
 Marks the grave of a hero, for her glad to die. 
 
342 The Engine and the "Coo." 
 
 And the train rolls behind with a thunderous speed, 
 With its freight of the people, the free and the 
 
 freed ; 
 Earth's nations aroused hail its gleam thro' the 
 
 gloom, 
 While its beacons the pathway of progress illume. 
 
 Will it stop when the steam driving onward the 
 
 train 
 
 Is raised from the blood of our hecatombs slain ? 
 While the Tank is the hearts of a million of men 
 Who their lives offered once, and are ready again ? 
 
 Will it stop for the cravens who stand on its track, 
 And howl execrations to frighten it back ? 
 No ! brawny old worker, your story was true ; 
 
 'Twill be bad for the coo, yes ! d d bad for the 
 
 coo ! 
 
THE EXILE OF ERIN'S VIEW OF HAYES' 
 POLICY. 
 
 Pat. " Fwhat's the matther wid the naygurs 
 That the abolition beggars 
 Are growlin at the govermint, 
 An' blaggardin the prisidint?" 
 
 Dennis. " A parable I '11 till you, Pat, 
 
 An' iv you 've brains, fin' out from that. 
 
 Aich prairie dog his fate bewails 
 
 Bekays of schnakes wid jinglin tails 
 
 Sornin' upon 'em, aitin up 
 
 Wid appetite aieh frisky pup, 
 
 Claimiii' the burrow law recites 
 
 How dogs wid schnakes have aiqual rights. 
 
 "A paceful an judgmatic owl, 
 Hearin' the dogs' dishgraceful howl, 
 An owl the dogs thimselves select 
 Their rights in burrows to protect 
 Argues wid them 4 you musht agree 
 To live wid schnakes in harmony ; 
 I 've give your case a careful hearin', 
 There is no use in interferin', 
 For pace an quiet, thin, fill up 
 Aich dishcontintid shnake wid pup. 
 All live on what they can digest, 
 This primal truth musht be confessed, 
 
344 The Exile of Erin's View of Hayes' Policy. 
 
 Pups are to schnakes, as grass to yon, 
 
 This is the comprehinsive view. 
 
 If aiqual rights to all pertain 
 
 Why should the schnakes'from pups abstain ? 
 
 "Pis hard on pups, but Nachure's law 
 
 Wid wakelins fills the sthronger's maw, 
 
 Lisht to the wurruds that wishdoom spakes 
 
 An' dishregard the puppies' squakes.' 
 
 The dogs heard this in dumb amaze, 
 
 The schnakes wid great content an praise." 
 
 So Dennis spake, and Pat replied 
 
 " I undherstan' the truths implied, 
 
 Our go vermin t resh trains its foorce 
 
 Nor interferes wid Nachure's coorse. 
 
 Good ordher reigns where Stringth is Right ; 
 
 The naygur must obey the white ; 
 
 An' aich thrue patriot musht admire 
 
 The shot-gun supersade the squire." . 
 
HAYES' POLICY. 
 
 The Modern Paul. 
 
 You inquiah ray opinion ob de status 
 Ob de collud pop'lation ob de Souf ; 
 
 I 'se esplain, vvid a drop ob de afflatus, 
 
 'Case I 'se suffrin in my innards wid a drouf. 
 
 'Taint as quenchin' as the big pine apple bowls 
 On de Sabba day ole Massa use to gib, 
 
 Wen I'se sweatin' wid de laborin fo souls, 
 An' a preachin' wot de niggah mus' belieb. 
 
 I 'se a preacha ob de gospel in de days 
 Wen de niggah was a anemile to sell, 
 
 How dey 'd shout, and dah kinky wool ud raise, 
 Wen I 'se 'scribin ob de agony of hell. 
 
 Wha dey 'd go, ef . dey did'n min' de tex 
 How de sahben de massa must obey, 
 
 How de Lohd, 'cep de missus dey respecs 
 Would sizzle 'em foreber an a day. 
 
 De oberseer was easy wid dis chile, 
 
 Fo my summons saved him wearin out de cat, 
 I was slick den, an happy all de wile, 
 
 Now dis libbuty has tooken all de fat. 
 
 But I tinks Massa Hayes '11 bring it roun, 
 Dem happy days will come again to me, 
 23 
 
346 Hayes' Policy The Modern Paul. 
 
 Wen de dahkies heah de gospel trumpet soun, 
 And quit singin ob de Yeah of Jubilee. 
 
 Ob couse I is a nigga in de skin, 
 
 But my sentimens an feelins, dey is wite, 
 
 Focht up in " High-tone" family to begin, 
 An eddicate to understan wats right. 
 
 An I belieb de Bible wha it says, 
 
 How Ole Noahob Ham's conduc did complain. 
 You jess bet youah bottom dolla, Massa Hayes 
 
 Helps de Lohd, in dis cussin of Canaan. 
 
 By dis policy ob Hayes you understan 
 
 Dat de shot gun ob de white folks bahsde rule, 
 
 You pussieves I 'se a comprehensive man, 
 An I comprehens de wukkins ob dat tool. 
 
 De folks dat has de shot gun had de cat, 
 So dey says, you Boanerges now pitch in, 
 
 An sarbe out Jonah gospel doctrine hot, 
 So you sabes us dis powda wastin sin. 
 
 I espounds, den, de meanin ob de Wud, 
 How all de powahs dat be are ahdained, 
 
 Dat resistin em 's resistin ob de Lohd, 
 
 An de goverment had ort to be sustained. 
 
 So de shot gun gibs five votes in the Souf, 
 What de cat didn gone to hab but free, 
 
 And de powah of my eloquential mouf 
 'Shoos de triumph ob de Hayes policy. 
 
TWO SURVIVORS DISCUSS HAYES' POLICY, 
 
 Scipio. Cuffee ! you min's dem dismal nights 
 
 We dassent sleep at home, 
 'Cause wen we vote fo' equal rights 
 
 We 'se feared the Ku-Klux come ? 
 You min's wen Sam was wipped to def 
 
 We wid his pluck were 'maze, 
 Because dat wid his dyin' bref 
 
 He 'd vote fo Massa Hayes ? 
 
 You min's we could n't get no wuk 
 
 Unless we 'd sign de roll, 
 And ebery nig was out ob luck 
 
 Widout he'd pledge his poll ? 
 We tought ef we 'd unite ouahsefs 
 
 An Massa Hayes elec', 
 He 'd make de wite folks have deahsefs 
 
 And cullud folks protec'. 
 
 Now arter all de fuss we 'se had, 
 
 De starbin an de shame, 
 De brack man's treated jess as bad ; 
 
 Ain't somebody to blame ? 
 Dat showah was not big enough 
 
 Eben to lay de dus', 
 Now, ef you can, explain it, Cuff, 
 
 An lem me know de wus'. 
 
348 Two Survivors discuss Hayes' Policy. 
 
 Cuffee. W'a's de provub dat you read 
 'Bout de frens ob folks in need, 
 How dey leabs him to hisself, 
 An assoshumates wid welf. 
 Wat de prophet says ob men 
 'S jess as true heah now, as den ; 
 When his bruddahs hate de poah 
 You knows whar Hayes is libin, suah. 
 
 An dah's anuder provub, chile, 
 De sinnah lubs de lips of guile, 
 De liah gives a greedy eah, 
 To wat he from de wicked heah : 
 An Massa Hayes he lub de poah, 
 But he lubs de office moah. 
 He done got up on tuddah side 
 Else dey wouldn' let him ride. 
 
 You min youah wuk, an go to school, 
 
 De han ob diligence bars rule, 
 
 An shet youah mouf, fo fools' discourse 
 
 Ony makes dah case de wuss. 
 
 Lahn ob wisdom, Scip, an lissen, 
 
 Whar's de cat de mice am missen; 
 
 Wen de fox is at de ruddah 
 
 Speak him fahrly, my deah brudder. 
 
ON THE MEMORIAL MASS REFUSED THE 
 LIVERPOOL FENIANS. 
 
 I 'm tould, Bishop Duggan, of Hell's crakin dures 
 From Saint Pether direct you reseave'd the kay, 
 
 And that it ud require a shmall stretch of yer 
 
 pooers 
 To opin thim wide av some masses you 'd say. 
 
 I 'm tould, too, that schreechin' an scorchin' widin, 
 A-toashtin by divils the twelmonth last past 
 
 Are some frinds av me own, an their principal sin 
 Was, thryin' to free poor ould Ireland too fasht. 
 
 I 'm tould, too, ye 're offered the cash in yer fisht, 
 But to opin the dures and let three av thim pass, 
 
 An sure from the crowd there they 'd niver be 
 
 misshed 
 Yet yer only reply is " The divil a Mass ! " 
 
 Now, Bishop, I can't for the life av me see, 
 
 Whin your Riverence Hell's kapers are boun to 
 
 obey, 
 Why you won't let them out, when ye 'd get a good 
 
 fee. 
 Ah ! ye wud let thim out av ye 'd iver a kay ! 
 
 Av yez hav an won't use it, be Jaybers I shwear 
 Whin I go there meself, I '11 have something to say : 
 
 'Twill be this, I 'm contintid, I 'd rather sthay 
 
 here 
 Than associate wid yez, To Hell wid yer kay ! 
 
HONEST MONEY." 
 
 Tune " Roy's Wife o* Alrleralloch." 
 
 Red Gold 's the chiefest good of life ; 
 
 Come sing its praises, every blackguard 
 Whose ballot plumped to aid its strife, 
 
 To glut the fat, and starve the haggard. 
 Then shout its pseans, every hind 
 
 Whose half-paid toil yields Fraud its riches ; 
 Shiver and sing, as Winter's wind 
 
 Makes goose-flesh 'neath your ragged breeches 
 
 Silver is not honest money ; 
 Greenbacks are not honest money. 
 Rothschild says it ; Sherman pays it. 
 Gold alone is honest money. 
 
 Red Gold 's the proper stuff to pay 
 
 The note you gave for Greenbacks borrowed ; 
 And Labor's muscle 's lawful prey 
 
 Of curses Usury has farrowed. 
 What if you gave them, all the while, 
 
 Their interest at six per centum, 
 And ne'er with taxes did despoil 
 
 The liberal Jews who kindly lent 'em. 
 
 Double up their honest money ; 
 Pay them back in honest money, 
 
"Hone*t Money" 351 
 
 "Shent per shent" on what they lent ; 
 Give them Gold, the honest money. 
 
 D' ye mind how Pharaoh got their land, 
 
 When all the people wanted victual ? 
 Now Joseph holds you in his hand ; 
 
 So fetch along your deeds, and settle. 
 Let go your homesteads ; let your spawn 
 
 By beggary keep their souls within 'em, 
 Till their cockaded hats adorn 
 
 The liveried pomp of those who win 'em. 
 
 Scarcer make the honest money ; 
 Harder toil for honest money. 
 Three grains of wheat pay one you get, 
 If Gold alone is honest money. 
 
 The cheapest thing on Earth is Man, 
 
 When bankrupt labor stocks the market. 
 Cheap goods in vain your wife may scan, 
 
 Without a nickel in her pocket. 
 A five-cent muslin she can't buy, 
 
 But borrows thread to mend her tatters, 
 While you on Shylock's aid rely, 
 
 And lick the hands that weld your fetters. 
 
 He will give you honest money 
 Pay such wage in honest money, 
 That in free soup is Labor's hope, 
 Living under honest money. 
 
 Self-government 's a funny farce 
 
 When one man's greed can ruin twenty. 
 
352 "Honest Money" 
 
 Who deals in money, wants it scarce ; 
 
 And who deals with it, wants it plenty. 
 What work can coupon-cutters give, 
 
 Or how prosperitjr restore us ? 
 Labor no otherwise can thrive, 
 
 Than joining now in hearty chorus : 
 
 Silver 's always honest money ; 
 Greenbacks shall be honest money ; 
 For Gold is dyed with Labor's blood 
 Never meant for honest money. 
 

 14 DAY USE 
 
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 240ct'59MW 
 
 LD 21A-50W-4/59 
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 University of California 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY