. . . 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_.
"_What's my price_, _sir_? _I'm no Jew_.
_If with me you wish to sleep_,
_'Tis five francs_, _sir_. _Surely you_
_Will admit that that is cheap_?"
HE.--"Christ, if you are not stone blind,
Stone deaf also, you know it is
Christian towns leave far behind
Sodom and those other cities.
"Bid your Father strike this town,
Wipe it utterly away!
Weary, hungry, up and down
From early eve to early day?
"Magdalen knew nought like this;
She had food and roof above;
Seven devils, too, did she possess;
This poor soul had but one--love!
"O my sister, take me, kill me!
I am one of those who once
Only cared to feast and fill me
On these robbed and murdered ones.
"Kill me? Nay, but love me; listen.
I have too a gospel word,
Fit to make still, dull eyes glisten,
And, like Christ's, it brings a sword!
"No, Christ is not deaf nor blind;
He's but dust in Syrian ground,
And his Father has declined
To a parson's phrase, a sound.
"Not by such, then, but by _us_
These hell-wrongs must be redressed.
Take this morsel venomous;
Nourish it within your breast.
"You must live on, live and hate;
Conquer wrath, despair and pain;
For "we bid you hope" and wait
Till the Red Flag flies again:
"Till once more the people rise,
Once more, once and only once,
Blood-red hands and blazing eyes
Of the robbed and murdered ones!
"So good night, dear desperate heart.
(Nay, 'tis sun-bright day we keep.)
Soon we meet, though now we part.
Kiss me . . . Take it . . . Go and sleep!"
"THE TRUTH."
Come then, let us at least know what's the truth.
Let us not blink our eyes and say
We did not understand; old age or youth
Benumbed our sense or stole our sight away.
It is a lie--just that, a lie--to declare
That wages are the worth of work.
No; they are what the Employer wills to spare
To let the Employee sheer starvation shirk.
They're the life-pittance Competition leaves,
The least for which brother'll slay brother.
He who the fruits of this hell-strife receives,
He is a thief, an assassin, and none other!
It is a lie--just that, a lie--to declare
That Rent's the interest on just gains.
Rent's the thumb-screw that makes the worker share
With him who worked not the produce of his pains.
Rent's the wise tax the human tape-worm knows.
The fat he takes; the life-lean leaves.
The holy Landlord is, as we suppose,
Just this--the model of assassin-thieves!
What is the trick the rich-man, then, contrives?
How play my lords their brilliant roles?--
_They live on the plunder of our toiling lives_,
_The degradation of our bodies and souls_!