Chapter 2

Her cheeks are rather fallen in; a mist Glazes her eyes, for all their hungry glare. Her lips do not breathe balmy when they're kissed. And yet she's not more loathsome than, I swear, Your grandmother at whist.

My lord, she will admit, and need not frame Excuses for herself, that she's not chaste. First a young lover had her; then she came From one man's to another's arms, with haste. Your mother did the same.

Moreover, since she's married, once or twice She's sold herself for certain things at night, To sell one's body for the highest price Of social ease and power, all girls think right. Your sister did it thrice.

What, you'll not buy? You'll curse at her instead?-- Her children are alone, at home, quite near. These winter streets, so gay at nights, 'tis said, Have 'ticed the wanton out. _She could not hear_ _Her children cry for bread_!

TO THE GIRLS OF THE UNIONS.

Girls, we love you, and love Asks you to give again That which draws it above, Beautiful, without stain.

Give us weariless faith In our Cause pure, passionate, Dearer than life and death, Dear as the love that's it!

Give to the man who turns Traitrous hands or forlorn Back from the plough that burns, Give him pitiless scorn!

Let him know that no wife Would bear him a fearless child To hate and loathe the life Of a leprous father defiled.

_Girls_, _we love you_, _and love_ _Asks you to give again_ _That which draws it above_, _Beautiful_, _without stain_!

HAGAR.

She went along the road, Her baby in her arms. The night and its alarms Made deadlier her load.

Her shrunken breasts were dry; She felt the hunger bite. She lay down in the night, She and the child, to die.

But it would wail, and wail, And wail. She crept away. She had no word to say, Yet still she heard the wail.

She took a jagged stone; She wished it to be dead. She beat it on the head; It only gave one moan.

She has no word to say; She sits there in the night. The east sky glints with light, And it is Christmas Day!

"WHY!"

"_Why is it we toil so_? _Where go all the gains_? _What do we produce for it_, _All our pangs and pains_?"

Why it is we toil so, Is it because, like sheep, Since our fathers sought the shears, We the same course keep.

Where go all the gains? Well, It must be confessed, First the landlords take the rent, And the masters take the rest.

What do we produce for it? Gentlemen!--and then Imitation snobs who'd be Like the gentlemen!

"_What_, _is it for such as these_ _That we suffer thus_? _Fuddle-brained and vicious fools_, _Vermin venomous_?

"_What_, _is that why on the top_ _Creeps that Royal Louse_, _The prince of pheasants and cigars_, _Of ballet-girls and grouse_?"

Yes, that's why, my Christian friends, They slave and slaughter us. England is made a dunghill that Some bugs may breed and buzz.

A VISITOR IN THE CAMP. To MARY ROBINSON. {27}

"_What_, _are you lost_, _my pretty little lady_? _This is no place for such sweet things as you_. _Our bodies_, _rank with sweat_, _will make you sicken_, _And_, _you'll observe_, _our lives are rank lives too_."

"Oh no, I am not lost! Oh no, I've come here (And I have brought my lute, see, in my hand), To see you, and to sing of all you suffer To the great world, and make it understand!"

"_Well_, _say_! _If one of those who'd robbed you thousands_, _Dropped you a sixpence in the gutter where_ _You lay and rotted_, _would you call her angel_, _For all her charming smile and dainty air_?"

"Oh no, I come not thus! Oh no, I've come here With heart indignant, pity like a flame, To try and help you!"--"_Pretty little lady_, _It will be best you go back whence you came_."

"'_Enthusiasms_' _we have such little time for_! _In our rude camp we drill the whole day long_. _When we return from out the serried battle_, _Come_, _and we'll listen to your pretty song_!"

"LORD LEITRIM."

My Lord, at last you have it! Now we know Truth's not a phrase, justice an idle show. Your life ran red with murder, green with lust. Blood has washed blood clean, and, in the final dust Your carrion will be purified. Yet, see, Though your body perish, for your soul shall be An immortality of infamy!

"ANARCHISM."

'Tis not when I am here, In these homeless homes, Where sin and shame and disease And foul death comes;

'Tis not when heart and brain Would be still and forget Men and women and children Dragged down to the pit:

But when I hear them declaiming Of "liberty," "order," and "law," The husk-hearted gentleman And the mud-hearted bourgeois,

That a sombre hateful desire Burns up slow in my breast To wreck the great guilty temple, And give us rest!

BELGRAVIA BY NIGHT. "MOVE ON!"

"The foxes have holes, And the birds of the air have nests, But where shall the heads of the sons of men Be laid, be laid?"

"_Where the cold corpse rests_, _Where the sightless moles_ _Burrow and yet cannot make it afraid_, _Rout but cannot wake it again_, _There shall the heads of the sons of men_ _Be laid_, _laid_!"

JESUS.

Where is poor Jesus gone? He sits with Dives now, And not even the crumbs are flung To Lazarus below.

Where is poor Jesus gone? Is he with Magdalen? He doles her one by one Her wages of shame!

Where is poor Jesus gone? The good Samaritan, What does he there alone? He stabs the wounded man!

Where is poor Jesus gone, The lamb they sacrificed? They've made God of his carrion And labelled it "Christ!"

PARALLELS FOR THE PIOUS.

"He holds a pistol to my head, Swearing that he will shoot me dead, If he have not my purse instead, The robber!"

"_He_, _with the lash of wealth and power_, _Flogs out my heart and flings the dower_, _The plundered pittance of his hour_, _The robber_!"

"He shakes his serpent tongue that lies, Wins trust for poisoned sophistries And stabs me in the dark, and flies, The assassin!"

"_He pits me in the dreadful fight_ _Against my fellow_. _Then he quite_ _Strips both his victims in the night_, _The assassin_!"

"PRAYER."

This is what I pray In this horrible day, In this terrible night, God will give me light. Such as I have had, That I go not mad.

This is what I seek, God will keep me meek Till mine eyes behold, Till my lips have told All this hellish crime.-- _Then it's sleeping time_!

TO THE CHRISTIANS.

Take, then, your paltry Christ, Your gentleman God. _We_ want the carpenter's son, With his saw and hod.

_We_ want the man who loved The poor and oppressed, Who hated the rich man and king And the scribe and the priest.

_We_ want the Galilean Who knew cross and rod. It's your "good taste" that prefers A bastard God!

"DEFEAT?"

Who is it speaks of defeat?-- I tell you a Cause like ours Is greater than defeat can know; It is the power of powers!

As surely as the earth rolls round, As surely as the glorious sun Brings the great world sea-wave, Must our Cause be won!

What is defeat to us?-- Learn what a skirmish tells, While the great Army marches on To storm earth's hells!

TO JOHN RUSKIN. (_After reading his_ "_Modern Painters_.")

Yes, you do well to mock us, you Who knew our bitter woe-- To jeer the false, deny the true In us blind struggling low,

While, on your pleasant place aloft With flowers and clouds and streams, At our black sweat and toil you scoffed That marred your idle dreams.

"_Oh_, _freedom_, _what was that to us_," (You'd shout down to us there), "_Except the freedom foul_, _vicious_, _From all of good and fair_?

"_Obedience_, _faith_, _humility_, _To us were empty names_."-- The like to you (might we reply) Whose noisy life proclaims

Presumption, want of human love, Impatience, filthy breath, {32} The snob in soul who looks above, Trampling on what's beneath.

When did you strive, in nobler part, With love and gentleness, To help one soul, to win one heart To joy and hope and peace?

Go to, vain prophet, without faith In God who maketh new, With hankerings for this putrid death, This Flesh-feast of the Few,

This Social Structure of red mud, This Edifice of slime, Whose bricks are bones, whose mortar's blood, Whose pinnacle is Crime!--

Go to, for we who strain our power For light and warmth and scope, For wives', for children's happier hour, Can teach you faith and hope.

Hark to the shout of those who cleared The Missionary Ridge! Look on those dead who never feared The battle's bloody bridge!

Watch the stern swarm at that last breach March up that came not thence-- And learn Democracy can teach Divine obedience. {33}

Pass through that South at last brought low Where loyal freemen live, And learn Democracy knows how To utterly forgive.

Come then, and take this free-given bread Of us who've scarce enough; Hush your proud lips, bow down your head And worship human love!

TO THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.

You are at least a man, of men a king. You have a heart, and with that heart you love. The race you come from is not gendered of The filthy sty whose latest litter cling Round England's flesh-pots, gorged and gluttoning. No, but on flaming battle-fields, in courts Of honour and of danger old resorts, The name of Hohen-Zollern clear doth ring. O Father William, you, not falsely weak, Who never spared the rod to spoil the child, Our mighty Germany, we only speak To bless you with a blessing sweet and mild, Ere that near heaven your weary footsteps seek Where love with liberty is reconciled.

SONG OF THE DISPOSSESSED. "TO JESUS."

"Be with us by day, by night, O lover, O friend; Hold before us thy light Unto the end!

"See, all these children of ours Starved and ill-clad. Speak to thy heart's lily-flowers, And make them glad!

"Our wives and daughters are here, Knowing wrong and shame's touch Bid them be of good cheer Who have loved much.

"And we, we are robbed and oppressed, Even as thine were. Tell us of comfort and rest, Banish despair!

"_Be with us by day_, _by night_, _O lover_, _O friend_; _Hold before us thy light_ _Unto the end_!"

ART.

Yes, let Art go, if it must be That with it men must starve-- If Music, Painting, Poetry Spring from the wasted hearth.

Pluck out the flower, however fair, Whose beauty cannot bloom, (However sweet it be, or rare) Save from a noisome tomb.

These social manners, charm and ease, Are hideous to who knows The degradation, the disease From which their beauty flows.

So, Poet, must thy singing be; O Painter, so thy scene; Musician, so thy melody, While misery is queen.

_Nay_, _brothers_, _sing us battle-songs_ _With clear and ringing rhyme_; _Nay_, _show the world its hateful wrongs_, _And bring the better time_!

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT. {35}

Thro' the mists of years, Thro' the lies of men, Your bloody sweat and tears, Your desperate hopes and fears Reach us once again.

Brothers, who long ago, For life's bitter sake Toiled and suffered so, Robbery, insult, blow, Rope and sword and stake:

Toiled and suffered, till It burst, the brightening hope, "Might and right" and "will and skill," That scorned, and does, and will, Sword and stake and rope!

Wat and Jack and John, Tyler, Straw, and Ball, Souls that faltered not, Hearts like white iron hot, Still we hear your call!

Yes, your "bell is rung," Yes, for "now is time!" Come hither, every one, Brave ghosts whose day's not done, Avengers of old rime,--

Come and lead the way, Hushed, implacable, Suffering no delay, Forgetting not that day Dreadful, hateful, fell,

When the liar king, The liar gentlemen, Wrought that foulest thing, Robbing, murdering Men who'd trusted them! {36}

Come and lead the way, Hushed, implacable. What shall stop us, say, On that day, _our_ day?-- _Not unloosened hell_!

"ANALOGY." (To D---- L----.)

Had you lived when a tyrant king Strove to make all the slaves of one, With nobles and with churchmen you Had stood unflinching, pure and true, To annihilate that hateful thing Green Runnymeade beat out of John?

Had you lived when a wanton crew, Flash scoundrels of a day outdone, Trod down the toilers birth derides, With Cromwell and his Ironsides The brave days had discovered you, Where Naseby saw the gallants run?

And yet you,--this same knight in list For freedom in her narrow dawn Against that one, against those few, Vile king, vile nobles--you, yet you Stand by the bloody Capitalist, Fight with the pandar Gentleman!

IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.

The stars shone faint through the smoky blue; The church-bells were ringing; Three girls, arms laced, were passing through, Tramping and singing.

Their heads were bare; their short skirts swung As they went along; Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung Their defiant song.

It was not too clean, their feminine lay, But it thrilled me quite With its challenge to task-master villainous day And infamous night,

With its threat to the robber rich, the proud, The respectable free. And I laughed and shouted to them aloud, And they shouted to me!

"_Girls_, _that's the shout_, _the shout we shall utter_ _When with rifles and spades_, _We stand_, _with the old Red Flag aflutter_, _On the barricades_!"

A STREET FIGHT. (To MR F----.) {38}

Sir, we approve your curling lip and nose At this vile sight. These men, these women are brute beasts?--Who knows, Sir, but that you are right?

Panders and harlots, rogues and thieves and worse, We are a crew Whose pitiful plunder's honoured in the purse Of gentlemen like you.

Whom holy Competition's taught (like us) "What's thine is mine!"-- _How we must love you who have made us thus_, _You may perhaps divine_!

IN AN EAST END HOVEL. TO A WORKMAN, A WOULD-BE SUICIDE.

Man of despair and death, Bought and slaved in the gangs, Starved and stripped and left To the pitiful pitiless night, Away with your selfish thoughts! Touch not your ignorant life! Are there no masters of slaves, Jeering, cynical, strong-- Are there no brigands (say), With the words of Christ on their lips And the daggers under their cloaks-- Is there not one of these That you can steal on and kill? O as the Swiss mountaineer Dogged on the perilous heights His disciplined conqueror foes: {39a} Caught up one in his arms And, laughing exultantly, Plunged with him to the abyss: So let it be with you! An eye for an eye, and a tooth For a tooth, and a life for a life! Tell it, this hateful strong Contemptuous hypocrite world, Tell it that, if we must live As dogs and as worse than dogs, At least we can die like men! Tell it there is a woe Not for the conquered alone! {39b} _An eye for an eye_, _and a tooth_ _For a tooth_, _and a life for a life_!

DUBLIN AT DAWN.

In the chill grey summer dawn-light We pass through the empty streets; The rattling wheels are all silent; No friend his fellow greets.

Here and there, at the corners, A man in a great-coat stands; A bayonet hangs by his side, and A rifle is in his hands.

This is a conquered city; It speaks of war not peace; And that's one of the English soldiers The English call "police."

You see, at the present moment That noble country of mine Is boiling with indignation At the memory of a "crime."

In a path in the Phoenix Park where The children romped and ran, An Irish ruffian met his doom, And an English gentleman.

For a hundred and over a hundred Years on the country side Men and women and children Have slaved and starved and died,

That those who slaved and starved them Might spend their earnings then, And the Irish ruffians have a "good time," And the English gentlemen.

And that's why at the present moment That noble country of mine Is boiling with indignation At the memory of a "crime."

For the Irish ruffians (they tell me), And it looks as if 'twere true, And the English gentlemen are so scarce, We could not spare those two!

In the chill grey summer dawn-light We pass through the empty streets; The rattling wheels are all silent; No friend his fellow greets.

Here and there, at the corners, A man in a great-coat stands; A bayonet hangs by his side, and A rifle is in his hands.

This is a conquered city; It speaks of war not peace; And that's one of the English soldiers The English call "police."

THE CAGED EAGLE.

. . . I went the other day To see the birds and beasts they keep enmewed In the London Zoo. One of the first I saw-- One of the first I noticed, was an eagle. Ragged, befouled, within his iron bars He sat without a movement or a sound, And, when I stood and pitying looked at him, I saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed Out to the horizon sky. I passed from there, And walked about the gardens, hither and thither, Till all the afternoon was spent. Returning then To seek my home, again by chance I passed The eagle's cage, and stood again, and looked, And saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed Out to the horizon sky. So I went home . . . _The eagle is Ireland_!

"IRELAND."

O we have loved you through cold and rain And pitiless frost, Consuming our offering of blood and of brain Gladly again and again and again, Though it all seemed lost, Ireland, Ireland!

O we will fight, fight on for you till Your anguish is past, The wronged ones righted, the tyrants still.-- Though God has not saved you, yet we will, At the last, at the last, Ireland, Ireland!

O we will love you in warmth and light And the happy day, When you have forgotten the terrible night, Standing proud and beautiful bright For ever and aye, Ireland, Ireland!

TO CHARLES PARNELL.

One thing we praise you for that is past praise-- The dauntless eyes that faced the rain and night, The hand that never wearied in the fight, Till, through the dark's despair, the dawn's delays, It rose, that vision of forgotten days, Ireland, a nation in her right and might, As fearless of the lightning as the Light,-- Freedom, the noon-tide sun that shines and stays! O brave, O pure, O hater of the wrong, (The wrong that is as one with England's name, Tyranny with cant of liberty, and shame With boast of righteousness), to you belong Trust for the hate that blinds our foes like flame, Love for the hope that makes our hearts so strong!

AN "ASSASSIN."

. . . They caught them at the bend. He and his son Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps. From either side the stone-walled wintry road There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk. The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest. The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped Close from the pitch-black of a thick-set bush Not five yards from him, and lit all the face Of him whose sweetheart walked the Dublin streets For lust of him who gave one yell and fell Flat on the stony road, a sweltering corse. Then they came out, the men who did this thing, And looked upon their hatred's retribution, While heedlessly the rattling car fled on. Grey-haired old wolf, your letch for peasants' blood, For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze, Is done, is done, for ever and ever is done! O foul young fox, no more young girls' fresh lips Shall bruise and bleed to cool your lecher's lust. Slowly from out the great high terraced clouds The round moon sailed. The dead were left alone.

* * * * *

I talked with one of those who did this thing, A coughing half-starved lad, mere skin and bone. I said: "They found upon those dead men, gold. Why did you not take it?" Then with proud-raised head, He looked at me and said: "_Sorr_, _we're not thaves_!"

_Brother_, _from up the maimed and mangled earth_, _Strewn with our flesh and bones_, _wet with our blood_, _Let that great word go up to unjust heaven_ _And smite the cheek of the devil they've called_ "_God_!"

"HOLY RUSSIA."

Crouched in the terrible land, The circle of pitiless ice, With frozen bloody feet And her pestilential summer's Fever-throb in her brow, Look, in her deep slow eyes The mists of her sleep of faith Stir, and a gleam of light, The ray of a blood-red sun, Beams out into the dusk. From far away, from the west, From the east, from the south, there come Faint sweet breaths of the breeze Of plenteous warmth and light. And she moves, and around her neck She feels the iron-scaled Snake Whose fangs suck at the heart Hid by her tattered dress, By her lean and hanging teat. Russia, O land of faith, O realm of the ageless Slav, O oppressed one of eternity, This darkest hour is the hour, The hour of the coming dawn! Europe the rank, the corrupt, Lies stretched out at your feet. Turkey, India, lo all, East and south, it is yours!

Years, years ago a nation, {44} Oppressed as you are oppressed, Burst her bonds and leaped out, A volcanic sea-wave of fire, Quenched at last but in blood, Though not before the red spray Dashed the Pyramids, the Escurial, Rome and your own grey Kremlin. That was the great sea-wave Of a nation that disbelieved, Of a nation that had not faith! _What shall the sea-wave be_ _Of this race of eternal belief_, _This nation of a passionate faith_?

PERE-LA-CHAISE. {45} (_Paris_.)

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city, Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay, The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity, Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.

Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom Hell's wrongs unutterable had made as mad. The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb, The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.

O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race! O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that The lust in one for power, for tinsel place, Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat,--

Is it for nothing, now and evermore, O you whose sin in life had death in ease, The murder of your victims beats the door Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?

AUX TERNES. {46} (_Paris_.)

SHE.--"_Up and down_, _up and down_, _From early eve to early day_. _Life is quicker in the town_; _When you've leisure_, _anyway_!

"_Down and up_, _down and up_! _O will no one stop and speak_? _I would really like to sup_, _And my limbs are heavy and weak_.