I wandered over to the place where they keep
the animals, and stopped in front of one of the
monkey cages.
Dear, unconventional little beasts! They always
charm my blacker moods away from me! So free,
so untrammeled, so primitive!
I smiled at a monkey. He smiled at me. I held
up a peanut. He reached out his hand for it.
I was about to fling it to him when I saw a sign
that read:
"Visitors are warned not to feed the animals
under the penalty of the law."
Always their laws! Always their restrictions!
Always their damnable shackles! Always this
denial of the rights of the individual!
For a moment I stood there with the peanut in
my hand just simply too angry for anything!
And then I cried out, quite loudly: "Curses upon
organized society! I will break its laws! I will
feed the animals!"
Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite
plainly as if I were some other person; poets often
do, you know; and I could not help thinking of the
pose of Ajax defying the lightning.
"I WILL break the law!" I cried. "So there!"
And with that I flung the peanut right into the
cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing
mockingly as I ran.
I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that
night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem,
"The Defiance."
What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see
and Courage to perform! This is the age of Virility!