Ave Et Vale

Comrades, what matter the watch-night tells
That a New Year comes or goes?
What to us are the crashing bells
That clang out the Century's close?

What to us is the gala dress?
The whirl of the dancing feet?
The glitter and blare in the laughing press,
And din of the merry street?

The Hurricane

"We are the birds of the coming storm." — August Spies

The tide is out, the wind blows off the shore;
Bare burn the white sands in the scorching sun;
The sea complains, but its great voice is low.

   Bitter thy woes, O People,
      And the burden
   Hardly to be borne!
   Wearily grows, O People,
      All the aching
   Of thy pierced heart, bruised and torn!
   But yet thy time is not,
      And low thy moaning.
   Desert thy sands!
   Not yet is thy breath hot,
      Vengefully blowing;
   It wafts o'er lifted hands.

Life or Death

A Soul, half through the Gate, said unto Life:
"What does thou offer me?" And Life replied:
"Sorrow, unceasing struggle, disappointment; after these
Darkness and silence." The Soul said unto Death:
"What does thou offer me?" And Death replied:
"In the beginning what Life gives at last."
Turning to Life: "And if I live and struggle?"
"Others shall live and struggle after thee
Counting it easier where thou hast passed."

Mary Wollstonecraft

The dust of a hundred years
Is on thy breast,
And thy day and thy night of tears
Are centurine rest.
Thou to whom joy was dumb,
Life a broken rhyme,
Lo, thy smiling time is come,
And our weeping time.
Thou who hadst sponge and myrrh
And a bitter cross,
Smile, for the day is here

The Suicide's Defense

 
(Of all the stupidities wherewith the law-making power has signaled its own incapacity for dealing with the disorders of society, none appears so utterly stupid as the law which punishes an attempted suicide. To the question "What have you to say in your defense?" I conceive the poor wretch might reply as follows.)

To say in my defense? Defense of what?
Defense to whom? And why defense at all?
Have I wronged any? Let that one accuse!
Some priest there mutters I "have outraged God"!
Let God then try me, and let none dare judge
Himself as fit to put Heaven's ermine on!
Again I say, let the wronged one accuse.
Aye, silence! There is none to answer me.
And whom could I, a homeless, friendless tramp,
To whom all doors are shut, all hearts are locked,
All hands withheld— whom could I wrong, indeed
By taking that which benefited none

I Am

I am! The ages on the ages roll:
And what I am, I was, and I shall be:
by slow growth filling higher Destiny,
And Widening, ever, to the widening Goal.
I am the Stone that slept; down deep in me
That old, old sleep has left its centurine trace;
I am the plant that dreamed; and lo! still see
That dream-life dwelling on the Human Face.
I slept, I dreamed, I wakened: I am Man!
The hut grows Palaces; the depths breed light;
Still on! Forms pass; but Form yields kinglier
Might!
The singer, dying where his song began,
In Me yet lives; and yet again shall he
Unseal the lips of greater songs To Be;
For mine the thousand tongues of Immortality.

Voltairine de Cleyre

 

(Picture: Alone, Edmund Dulac)

Written-in-Red

(To Our Living Dead in Mexico's Struggle)

Written in red their protest stands,
For the gods of the World to see;
On the dooming wall their bodiless hands
have blazoned "Upharsin," and flaring brands
Illumine the message: "Seize the lands!
Open the prisons and make men free!"
Flame out the living words of the dead
Written-in-red.

Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.
But the shrouded Living, whose hearts were numb,
have felt the beat of a wakening drum
Within them sounding-the Dead men's tongue—
Calling: "Smite off the ancient rust!"
Have beheld "Resurrexit," the word of the Dead,
Written-in-red.