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\title{The Ghetto and Other Poems}
\date{}
\author{Lola Ridge}
\subtitle{}


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\begin{document}



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\chapter{To the American People}



\begin{verse}
Will you feast with me, American People?\forcelinebreak
But what have I that shall seem good to you!

On my board are bitter apples\forcelinebreak
And honey served on thorns,\forcelinebreak
And in my flagons fluid iron,\forcelinebreak
Hot from the crucibles.

How should such fare entice you!
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Ghetto}

\section{I}



\begin{verse}
Cool, inaccessible air\forcelinebreak
Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights,\forcelinebreak
But no breath stirs the heat\forcelinebreak
Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto\forcelinebreak
And most on Hester street\dots{}

The heat\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Nosing in the body’s overflow,\forcelinebreak
Like a beast pressing its great steaming belly close,\forcelinebreak
Covering all avenues of air\dots{}

The heat in Hester street,\forcelinebreak
Heaped like a dray\forcelinebreak
With the garbage of the world.

Bodies dangle from the fire escapes\forcelinebreak
Or sprawl over the stoops\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Upturned faces glimmer pallidly—\forcelinebreak
Herring-yellow faces, spotted as with a mold,\forcelinebreak
And moist faces of girls\forcelinebreak
Like dank white lilies,\forcelinebreak
And infants’ faces with open parched mouths that suck at the air\forcelinebreak
~~~~~as at empty teats.

Young women pass in groups,\forcelinebreak
Converging to the forums and meeting halls,\forcelinebreak
Surging indomitable, slow\forcelinebreak
Through the gross underbrush of heat.\forcelinebreak
Their heads are uncovered to the stars,\forcelinebreak
And they call to the young men and to one another\forcelinebreak
With a free camaraderie.\forcelinebreak
Only their eyes are ancient and alone\dots{}

The street crawls undulant,\forcelinebreak
Like a river addled\forcelinebreak
With its hot tide of flesh\forcelinebreak
That ever thickens.\forcelinebreak
Heavy surges of flesh\forcelinebreak
Break over the pavements,\forcelinebreak
Clavering like a surf—\forcelinebreak
Flesh of this abiding\forcelinebreak
Brood of those ancient mothers who saw the dawn break over Egypt\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And turned their cakes upon the dry hot stones\forcelinebreak
And went on\forcelinebreak
Till the gold of the Egyptians fell down off their arms\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Fasting and athirst\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And yet on\dots{}

Did they vision—with those eyes darkly clear,\forcelinebreak
That looked the sun in the face and were not blinded—\forcelinebreak
Across the centuries\forcelinebreak
The march of their enduring flesh?\forcelinebreak
Did they hear—\forcelinebreak
Under the molten silence\forcelinebreak
Of the desert like a stopped wheel—\forcelinebreak
(And the scorpions tick-ticking on the sand\dots{})\forcelinebreak
The infinite procession of those feet?
\end{verse}

\section{II}



\begin{verse}
I room at Sodos’—in the little green room that was Bennie’s—\forcelinebreak
With Sadie\forcelinebreak
And her old father and her mother,\forcelinebreak
Who is not so old and wears her own hair.

Old Sodos no longer makes saddles.\forcelinebreak
He has forgotten how.\forcelinebreak
He has forgotten most things—even Bennie who stays away\forcelinebreak
~~~~~and sends wine on holidays—\forcelinebreak
And he does not like Sadie’s mother\forcelinebreak
Who hides God’s candles,\forcelinebreak
Nor Sadie\forcelinebreak
Whose young pagan breath puts out the light—\forcelinebreak
That should burn always,\forcelinebreak
Like Aaron’s before the Lord.

Time spins like a crazy dial in his brain,\forcelinebreak
And night by night\forcelinebreak
I see the love-gesture of his arm\forcelinebreak
In its green-greasy coat-sleeve\forcelinebreak
Circling the Book,\forcelinebreak
And the candles gleaming starkly\forcelinebreak
On the blotched-paper whiteness of his face,\forcelinebreak
Like a miswritten psalm\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Night by night\forcelinebreak
I hear his lifted praise,\forcelinebreak
Like a broken whinnying\forcelinebreak
Before the Lord’s shut gate.

Sadie dresses in black.\forcelinebreak
She has black-wet hair full of cold lights\forcelinebreak
And a fine-drawn face, too white.\forcelinebreak
All day the power machines\forcelinebreak
Drone in her ears\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All day the fine dust flies\forcelinebreak
Till throats are parched and itch\forcelinebreak
And the heat—like a kept corpse—\forcelinebreak
Fouls to the last corner.

Then—when needles move more slowly on the cloth\forcelinebreak
And sweaty fingers slacken\forcelinebreak
And hair falls in damp wisps over the eyes—\forcelinebreak
Sped by some power within,\forcelinebreak
Sadie quivers like a rod\dots{}\forcelinebreak
A thin black piston flying,\forcelinebreak
One with her machine.

She—who stabs the piece-work with her bitter eye\forcelinebreak
And bids the girls: “Slow down—\forcelinebreak
You’ll have him cutting us again!”\forcelinebreak
She—fiery static atom,\forcelinebreak
Held in place by the fierce pressure all about—\forcelinebreak
Speeds up the driven wheels\forcelinebreak
And biting steel—that twice\forcelinebreak
Has nipped her to the bone.

Nights, she reads\forcelinebreak
Those books that have most unset thought,\forcelinebreak
New-poured and malleable,\forcelinebreak
To which her thought\forcelinebreak
Leaps fusing at white heat,\forcelinebreak
Or spits her fire out in some dim manger of a hall,\forcelinebreak
Or at a protest meeting on the Square,\forcelinebreak
Her lit eyes kindling the mob\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Or dances madly at a festival.\forcelinebreak
Each dawn finds her a little whiter,\forcelinebreak
Though up and keyed to the long day,\forcelinebreak
Alert, yet weary\dots{} like a bird\forcelinebreak
That all night long has beat about a light.

The Gentile lover, that she charms and shrews,\forcelinebreak
Is one more pebble in the pack\forcelinebreak
For Sadie’s mother,\forcelinebreak
Who greets him with her narrowed eyes\forcelinebreak
That hold some welcome back.\forcelinebreak
“What’s to be done?” she’ll say,\forcelinebreak
“When Sadie wants she takes\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Better than Bennie with his Christian woman\dots{}\forcelinebreak
A man is not so like,\forcelinebreak
If they should fight,\forcelinebreak
To call her Jew\dots{}”

Yet when she lies in bed\forcelinebreak
And the soft babble of their talk comes to her\forcelinebreak
And the silences\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I know she never sleeps\forcelinebreak
Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall\forcelinebreak
Edges through her transom\forcelinebreak
And she hears his foot on the first stairs.

Sarah and Anna live on the floor above.\forcelinebreak
Sarah is swarthy and ill-dressed.\forcelinebreak
Life for her has no ritual.\forcelinebreak
She would break an ideal like an egg for the winged thing at the core.\forcelinebreak
Her mind is hard and brilliant and cutting like an acetylene torch.\forcelinebreak
If any impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame.\forcelinebreak
It is droll that she should work in a pants factory.\forcelinebreak
—Yet where else\dots{} tousled and collar awry at her olive throat.\forcelinebreak
Besides her hands are unkempt.\forcelinebreak
With English\dots{} and everything\dots{} there is so little time.\forcelinebreak
She reads without bias—\forcelinebreak
Doubting clamorously—\forcelinebreak
Psychology, plays, science, philosophies—\forcelinebreak
Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed\dots{}\forcelinebreak
—And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~what amazing blossomings.

Anna is different.\forcelinebreak
One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads\forcelinebreak
~~~~~to look at her.\forcelinebreak
She has the appeal of a folk-song\forcelinebreak
And her cheap clothes are always in rhythm.\forcelinebreak
When the strike was on she gave half her pay.\forcelinebreak
She would give anything—save the praise that is hers\forcelinebreak
And the love of her lyric body.

But Sarah’s desire covets nothing apart.\forcelinebreak
She would share all things\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Even her lover.
\end{verse}

\section{III}



\begin{verse}
The sturdy Ghetto children\forcelinebreak
March by the parade,\forcelinebreak
Waving their toy flags,\forcelinebreak
Prancing to the bugles—\forcelinebreak
Lusty, unafraid\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Shaking little fire sticks\forcelinebreak
At the night—\forcelinebreak
The old blinking night—\forcelinebreak
Swerving out of the way,\forcelinebreak
Wrapped in her darkness like a shawl.

But a small girl\forcelinebreak
Cowers apart.\forcelinebreak
Her braided head,\forcelinebreak
Shiny as a black-bird’s\forcelinebreak
In the gleam of the torch-light,\forcelinebreak
Is poised as for flight.\forcelinebreak
Her eyes have the glow\forcelinebreak
Of darkened lights.

She stammers in Yiddish,\forcelinebreak
But I do not understand,\forcelinebreak
And there flits across her face\forcelinebreak
A shadow\forcelinebreak
As of a drawn blind.\forcelinebreak
I give her an orange,\forcelinebreak
Large and golden,\forcelinebreak
And she looks at it blankly.\forcelinebreak
I take her little cold hand and try to draw her to me,\forcelinebreak
But she is stiff\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Like a doll\dots{}

Suddenly she darts through the crowd\forcelinebreak
Like a little white panic\forcelinebreak
Blown along the night—\forcelinebreak
Away from the terror of oncoming feet\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And drums rattling like curses in red roaring mouths\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And torches spluttering silver fire\forcelinebreak
And lights that nose out hiding-places\dots{}\forcelinebreak
To the night—\forcelinebreak
Squatting like a hunchback\forcelinebreak
Under the curved stoop—\forcelinebreak
The old mammy-night\forcelinebreak
That has outlived beauty and knows the ways of fear—\forcelinebreak
The night—wide-opening crooked and comforting arms,\forcelinebreak
Hiding her as in a voluminous skirt.

The sturdy Ghetto children\forcelinebreak
March by the parade,\forcelinebreak
Waving their toy flags,\forcelinebreak
Prancing to the bugles,\forcelinebreak
Lusty, unafraid.\forcelinebreak
But I see a white frock\forcelinebreak
And eyes like hooded lights\forcelinebreak
Out of the shadow of pogroms\forcelinebreak
Watching\dots{} watching\dots{}
\end{verse}

\section{IV}



\begin{verse}
Calicoes and furs,\forcelinebreak
Pocket-books and scarfs,\forcelinebreak
Razor strops and knives\forcelinebreak
(Patterns in check\dots{})

Olive hands and russet head,\forcelinebreak
Pickles red and coppery,\forcelinebreak
Green pickles, brown pickles,\forcelinebreak
(Patterns in tapestry\dots{})

Coral beads, blue beads,\forcelinebreak
Beads of pearl and amber,\forcelinebreak
Gewgaws, beauty pins—\forcelinebreak
Bijoutry for chits—\forcelinebreak
Darting rays of violet,\forcelinebreak
Amethyst and jade\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All the colors out to play,\forcelinebreak
Jumbled iridescently\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Patterns in stained glass\forcelinebreak
Shivered into bits!)

Nooses of gay ribbon\forcelinebreak
Tugging at one’s sleeve,\forcelinebreak
Dainty little garters\forcelinebreak
Hanging out their sign\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Here a pout of frilly things—\forcelinebreak
There a sonsy feather\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(White beards, black beards\forcelinebreak
Like knots in the weave\dots{})

And ah, the little babies—\forcelinebreak
Shiny black-eyed babies—\forcelinebreak
(Half a million pink toes\forcelinebreak
Wriggling altogether.)\forcelinebreak
Baskets full of babies\forcelinebreak
Like grapes on a vine.

Mothers waddling in and out,\forcelinebreak
Making all things right—\forcelinebreak
Picking up the slipped threads\forcelinebreak
In Grand street at night—\forcelinebreak
Grand street like a great bazaar,\forcelinebreak
Crowded like a float,\forcelinebreak
Bulging like a crazy quilt\forcelinebreak
Stretched on a line.

But nearer seen\forcelinebreak
This litter of the East\forcelinebreak
Takes on a garbled majesty.

The herded stalls\forcelinebreak
In dissolute array\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The glitter and the jumbled finery\forcelinebreak
And strangely juxtaposed\forcelinebreak
Cans, paper, rags\forcelinebreak
And colors decomposing,\forcelinebreak
Faded like old hair,\forcelinebreak
With flashes of barbaric hues\forcelinebreak
And eyes of mystery\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Flung\forcelinebreak
Like an ancient tapestry of motley weave\forcelinebreak
Upon the open wall of this new land.

Here, a tawny-headed girl\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Lemons in a greenish broth\forcelinebreak
And a huge earthen bowl\forcelinebreak
By a bronzed merchant\forcelinebreak
With a tall black lamb’s wool cap upon his head\dots{}\forcelinebreak
He has no glance for her.\forcelinebreak
His thrifty eyes\forcelinebreak
Bend—glittering, intent\forcelinebreak
Their hoarded looks\forcelinebreak
Upon his merchandise,\forcelinebreak
As though it were some splendid cloth\forcelinebreak
Or sumptuous raiment\forcelinebreak
Stitched in gold and red\dots{}

He seldom talks\forcelinebreak
Save of the goods he spreads—\forcelinebreak
The meager cotton with its dismal flower—\forcelinebreak
But with his skinny hands\forcelinebreak
That hover like two hawks\forcelinebreak
Above some luscious meat,\forcelinebreak
He fingers lovingly each calico,\forcelinebreak
As though it were a gorgeous shawl,\forcelinebreak
Or costly vesture\forcelinebreak
Wrought in silken thread,\forcelinebreak
Or strange bright carpet\forcelinebreak
Made for sandaled feet\dots{}

Here an old grey scholar stands.\forcelinebreak
His brooding eyes—\forcelinebreak
That hold long vistas without end\forcelinebreak
Of caravans and trees and roads,\forcelinebreak
And cities dwindling in remembrance—\forcelinebreak
Bend mostly on his tapes and thread.

What if they tweak his beard—\forcelinebreak
These raw young seed of Israel\forcelinebreak
Who have no backward vision in their eyes—\forcelinebreak
And mock him as he sways\forcelinebreak
Above the sunken arches of his feet—\forcelinebreak
They find no peg to hang their taunts upon.\forcelinebreak
His soul is like a rock\forcelinebreak
That bears a front worn smooth\forcelinebreak
By the coarse friction of the sea,\forcelinebreak
And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace.

What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape,\forcelinebreak
Backed by a nickel star\forcelinebreak
Does prod him on,\forcelinebreak
Taking his proud patience for humility\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All gutters are as one\forcelinebreak
To that old race that has been thrust\forcelinebreak
From off the curbstones of the world\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And he smiles with the pale irony\forcelinebreak
Of one who holds\forcelinebreak
The wisdom of the Talmud stored away\forcelinebreak
In his mind’s lavender.

But this young trader,\forcelinebreak
Born to trade as to a caul,\forcelinebreak
Peddles the notions of the hour.\forcelinebreak
The gestures of the craft are his\forcelinebreak
And all the lore\forcelinebreak
As when to hold, withdraw, persuade, advance\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And be it gum or flags,\forcelinebreak
Or clean-all or the newest thing in tags,\forcelinebreak
Demand goes to him as the bee to flower.\forcelinebreak
And he—appraising\forcelinebreak
All who come and go\forcelinebreak
With his amazing\forcelinebreak
Slight-of-mind and glance\forcelinebreak
And nimble thought\forcelinebreak
And nature balanced like the scales at nought—\forcelinebreak
Looks Westward where the trade-lights glow,\forcelinebreak
And sees his vision rise—\forcelinebreak
A tape-ruled vision,\forcelinebreak
Circumscribed in stone—\forcelinebreak
Some fifty stories to the skies.
\end{verse}

\section{V}



\begin{verse}
As I sit in my little fifth-floor room—\forcelinebreak
Bare,\forcelinebreak
Save for bed and chair,\forcelinebreak
And coppery stains\forcelinebreak
Left by seeping rains\forcelinebreak
On the low ceiling\forcelinebreak
And green plaster walls,\forcelinebreak
Where when night falls\forcelinebreak
Golden lady-bugs\forcelinebreak
Come out of their holes,\forcelinebreak
And roaches, sepia-brown, consort\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I hear bells pealing\forcelinebreak
Out of the gray church at Rutgers street,\forcelinebreak
Holding its high-flung cross above the Ghetto,\forcelinebreak
And, one floor down across the court,\forcelinebreak
The parrot screaming:\forcelinebreak
Vorwärts\dots{} Vorwärts\dots{}

The parrot frowsy-white,\forcelinebreak
Everlastingly swinging\forcelinebreak
On its iron bar.

A little old woman,\forcelinebreak
With a wig of smooth black hair\forcelinebreak
Gummed about her shrunken brows,\forcelinebreak
Comes sometimes on the fire escape.\forcelinebreak
An old stooped mother,\forcelinebreak
The left shoulder low\forcelinebreak
With that uneven droopiness that women know\forcelinebreak
Who have suckled many young\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Yet I have seen no other than the parrot there.

I watch her mornings as she shakes her rugs\forcelinebreak
Feebly, with futile reach\forcelinebreak
And fingers without clutch.\forcelinebreak
Her thews are slack\forcelinebreak
And curved the ruined back\forcelinebreak
And flesh empurpled like old meat,\forcelinebreak
Yet each conspires\forcelinebreak
To feed those guttering fires\forcelinebreak
With which her eyes are quick.

On Friday nights\forcelinebreak
Her candles signal\forcelinebreak
Infinite fine rays\forcelinebreak
To other windows,\forcelinebreak
Coupling other lights,\forcelinebreak
Linking the tenements\forcelinebreak
Like an endless prayer.

She seems less lonely than the bird\forcelinebreak
That day by day about the dismal house\forcelinebreak
Screams out his frenzied word\dots{}\forcelinebreak
That night by night—\forcelinebreak
If a dog yelps\forcelinebreak
Or a cat yawls\forcelinebreak
Or a sick child whines,\forcelinebreak
Or a door screaks on its hinges,\forcelinebreak
Or a man and woman fight—\forcelinebreak
Sends his cry above the huddled roofs:\forcelinebreak
Vorwärts\dots{} Vorwärts\dots{}
\end{verse}

\section{VI}



\begin{verse}
In this dingy cafe\forcelinebreak
The old men sit muffled in woollens.\forcelinebreak
Everything is faded, shabby, colorless, old\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The chairs, loose-jointed,\forcelinebreak
Creaking like old bones—\forcelinebreak
The tables, the waiters, the walls,\forcelinebreak
Whose mottled plaster\forcelinebreak
Blends in one tone with the old flesh.

Young life and young thought are alike barred,\forcelinebreak
And no unheralded noises jolt old nerves,\forcelinebreak
And old wheezy breaths\forcelinebreak
Pass around old thoughts, dry as snuff,\forcelinebreak
And there is no divergence and no friction\forcelinebreak
Because life is flattened and ground as by many mills.

And it is here the Committee—\forcelinebreak
Sweet-breathed and smooth of skin\forcelinebreak
And supple of spine and knee,\forcelinebreak
With shining unpouched eyes\forcelinebreak
And the blood, high-powered,\forcelinebreak
Leaping in flexible arteries—\forcelinebreak
The insolent, young, enthusiastic, undiscriminating Committee,\forcelinebreak
Who would placard tombstones\forcelinebreak
And scatter leaflets even in graves,\forcelinebreak
Comes trampling with sacrilegious feet!

The old men turn stiffly,\forcelinebreak
Mumbling to each other.\forcelinebreak
They are gentle and torpid and busy with eating.\forcelinebreak
But one lifts a face of clayish pallor,\forcelinebreak
There is a dull fury in his eyes, like little rusty grates.\forcelinebreak
He rises slowly,\forcelinebreak
Trembling in his many swathings like an awakened mummy,\forcelinebreak
Ridiculous yet terrible.\forcelinebreak
—And the Committee flings him a waste glance,\forcelinebreak
Dropping a leaflet by his plate.

A lone fire flickers in the dusty eyes.\forcelinebreak
The lips chant inaudibly.\forcelinebreak
The warped shrunken body straightens like a tree.\forcelinebreak
And he curses\dots{}\forcelinebreak
With uplifted arms and perished fingers,\forcelinebreak
Claw-like, clutching\dots{}\forcelinebreak
So centuries ago\forcelinebreak
The old men cursed Acosta,\forcelinebreak
When they, prophetic, heard upon their sepulchres\forcelinebreak
Those feet that may not halt nor turn aside for ancient things.
\end{verse}

\section{VII}



\begin{verse}
Here in this room, bare like a barn,\forcelinebreak
Egos gesture one to the other—\forcelinebreak
Naked, unformed, unwinged\forcelinebreak
Egos out of the shell,\forcelinebreak
Examining, searching, devouring—\forcelinebreak
Avid alike for the flower or the dung\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Having no dainty antennae for the touch and withdrawal—\forcelinebreak
Only the open maw\dots{})

Egos cawing,\forcelinebreak
Expanding in the mean egg\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Little squat tailors with unkempt faces,\forcelinebreak
Pale as lard,\forcelinebreak
Fur-makers, factory-hands, shop-workers,\forcelinebreak
News-boys with battling eyes\forcelinebreak
And bodies yet vibrant with the momentum of long runs,\forcelinebreak
Here and there a woman\dots{}

Words, words, words,\forcelinebreak
Pattering like hail,\forcelinebreak
Like hail falling without aim\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Egos rampant,\forcelinebreak
Screaming each other down.\forcelinebreak
One motions perpetually,\forcelinebreak
Waving arms like overgrowths.\forcelinebreak
He has burning eyes and a cough\forcelinebreak
And a thin voice piping\forcelinebreak
Like a flute among trombones.

One, red-bearded, rearing\forcelinebreak
A welter of maimed face bashed in from some old wound,\forcelinebreak
Garbles Max Stirner.\forcelinebreak
His words knock each other like little wooden blocks.\forcelinebreak
No one heeds him,\forcelinebreak
And a lank boy with hair over his eyes\forcelinebreak
Pounds upon the table.\forcelinebreak
—He is chairman.

Egos yet in the primer,\forcelinebreak
Hearing world-voices\forcelinebreak
Chanting grand arias\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Majors resonant,\forcelinebreak
Stunning with sound\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Baffling minors\forcelinebreak
Half-heard like rain on pools\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Majestic discordances\forcelinebreak
Greater than harmonies\dots{}\forcelinebreak
—Gleaning out of it all\forcelinebreak
Passion, bewilderment, pain\dots{}

Egos yearning with the world-old want in their eyes—\forcelinebreak
Hurt hot eyes that do not sleep enough\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Striving with infinite effort,\forcelinebreak
Frustrate yet ever pursuing\forcelinebreak
The great white Liberty,\forcelinebreak
Trailing her dissolving glory over each hard-won barricade—\forcelinebreak
Only to fade anew\dots{}

Egos crying out of unkempt deeps\forcelinebreak
And waving their dreams like flags—\forcelinebreak
Multi-colored dreams,\forcelinebreak
Winged and glorious\dots{}

A gas jet throws a stunted flame,\forcelinebreak
Vaguely illumining the groping faces.\forcelinebreak
And through the uncurtained window\forcelinebreak
Falls the waste light of stars,\forcelinebreak
As cold as wise men’s eyes\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Indifferent great stars,\forcelinebreak
Fortuitously glancing\forcelinebreak
At the secret meeting in this shut-in room,\forcelinebreak
Bare as a manger.
\end{verse}

\section{VIII}



\begin{verse}
Lights go out\forcelinebreak
And the stark trunks of the factories\forcelinebreak
Melt into the drawn darkness,\forcelinebreak
Sheathing like a seamless garment.

And mothers take home their babies,\forcelinebreak
Waxen and delicately curled,\forcelinebreak
Like little potted flowers closed under the stars.

Lights go out\forcelinebreak
And the young men shut their eyes,\forcelinebreak
But life turns in them\dots{}

Life in the cramped ova\forcelinebreak
Tearing and rending asunder its living cells\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Wars, arts, discoveries, rebellions, travails, immolations,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~cataclysms, hates\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Pent in the shut flesh.\forcelinebreak
And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness\forcelinebreak
~~~~~unsupportable\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Their eyes—heavy and dimmed\forcelinebreak
With dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind—\forcelinebreak
Staring as through a choked glass.\forcelinebreak
And they gaze at the moon—throwing off a faint heat—\forcelinebreak
The moon, blond and burning, creeping to their cots\forcelinebreak
Softly, as on naked feet\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Lolling on the coverlet\dots{} like a woman offering her white body.

Nude glory of the moon!\forcelinebreak
That leaps like an athlete on the bosoms of the young girls stripped\forcelinebreak
~~~~~of their linens;\forcelinebreak
Stroking their breasts that are smooth and cool as mother-of-pearl\forcelinebreak
Till the nipples tingle and burn as though little lips plucked at them.\forcelinebreak
They shudder and grow faint.\forcelinebreak
And their ears are filled as with a delirious rhapsody,\forcelinebreak
That Life, like a drunken player,\forcelinebreak
Strikes out of their clear white bodies\forcelinebreak
As out of ivory keys.

Lights go out\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the great lovers linger in little groups, still passionately debating,\forcelinebreak
Or one may walk in silence, listening only to the still summons of Life—\forcelinebreak
Life making the great Demand\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Calling its new Christs\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Till tears come, blurring the stars\forcelinebreak
That grow tender and comforting like the eyes of comrades;\forcelinebreak
And the moon rolls behind the Battery\forcelinebreak
Like a word molten out of the mouth of God.

Lights go out\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And colors rush together,\forcelinebreak
Fusing and floating away\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Pale worn gold like the settings of old jewels\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Mauves, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples\forcelinebreak
And burning spires in aureoles of light\forcelinebreak
Like shimmering auras.

They are covering up the pushcarts\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Now all have gone save an old man with mirrors—\forcelinebreak
Little oval mirrors like tiny pools.\forcelinebreak
He shuffles up a darkened street\forcelinebreak
And the moon burnishes his mirrors till they shine like phosphorus\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The moon like a skull,\forcelinebreak
Staring out of eyeless sockets at the old men trundling home the pushcarts.
\end{verse}

\section{IX}



\begin{verse}
A sallow dawn is in the sky\forcelinebreak
As I enter my little green room.\forcelinebreak
Sadie’s light is still burning\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Without, the frail moon\forcelinebreak
Worn to a silvery tissue,\forcelinebreak
Throws a faint glamour on the roofs,\forcelinebreak
And down the shadowy spires\forcelinebreak
Lights tip-toe out\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Softly as when lovers close street doors.

Out of the Battery\forcelinebreak
A little wind\forcelinebreak
Stirs idly—as an arm\forcelinebreak
Trails over a boat’s side in dalliance—\forcelinebreak
Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat,\forcelinebreak
And Hester street,\forcelinebreak
Like a forlorn woman over-born\forcelinebreak
By many babies at her teats,\forcelinebreak
Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day.

LIFE!\forcelinebreak
Startling, vigorous life,\forcelinebreak
That squirms under my touch,\forcelinebreak
And baffles me when I try to examine it,\forcelinebreak
Or hurls me back without apology.\forcelinebreak
Leaving my ego ruffled and preening itself.

Life,\forcelinebreak
Articulate, shrill,\forcelinebreak
Screaming in provocative assertion,\forcelinebreak
Or out of the black and clotted gutters,\forcelinebreak
Piping in silvery thin\forcelinebreak
Sweet staccato\forcelinebreak
Of children’s laughter,

Or clinging over the pushcarts\forcelinebreak
Like a litter of tiny bells\forcelinebreak
Or the jingle of silver coins,\forcelinebreak
Perpetually changing hands,\forcelinebreak
Or like the Jordan somberly\forcelinebreak
Swirling in tumultuous uncharted tides,\forcelinebreak
Surface-calm.

Electric currents of life,\forcelinebreak
Throwing off thoughts like sparks,\forcelinebreak
Glittering, disappearing,\forcelinebreak
Making unknown circuits,\forcelinebreak
Or out of spent particles stirring\forcelinebreak
Feeble contortions in old faiths\forcelinebreak
Passing before the new.

Long nights argued away\forcelinebreak
In meeting halls\forcelinebreak
Back of interminable stairways—\forcelinebreak
In Roumanian wine-shops\forcelinebreak
And little Russian tea-rooms\dots{}

Feet echoing through deserted streets\forcelinebreak
In the soft darkness before dawn\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Brows aching, throbbing, burning—\forcelinebreak
Life leaping in the shaken flesh\forcelinebreak
Like flame at an asbestos curtain.

Life—\forcelinebreak
Pent, overflowing\forcelinebreak
Stoops and façades,\forcelinebreak
Jostling, pushing, contriving,\forcelinebreak
Seething as in a great vat\dots{}

Bartering, changing, extorting,\forcelinebreak
Dreaming, debating, aspiring,\forcelinebreak
Astounding, indestructible\forcelinebreak
Life of the Ghetto\dots{}

Strong flux of life,\forcelinebreak
Like a bitter wine\forcelinebreak
Out of the bloody stills of the world\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Out of the Passion eternal.
\end{verse}

\part{Manhattan Lights}

\chapter{Manhattan}



\begin{verse}
Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,\forcelinebreak
In a vesture of gold—\forcelinebreak
Span of innumerable arcs,\forcelinebreak
Flaring and multiplying—\forcelinebreak
Gold at the uttermost circles fading\forcelinebreak
Into the tenderest hint of jade,\forcelinebreak
Or fusing in tremulous twilight blues,\forcelinebreak
Robing the far-flung offices,\forcelinebreak
Scintillant-storied, forking flame,\forcelinebreak
Or soaring to luminous amethyst\forcelinebreak
Over the steeples aureoled—

Diaphanous gold,\forcelinebreak
Veiling the Woolworth, argently\forcelinebreak
Rising slender and stark\forcelinebreak
Mellifluous-shrill as a vender’s cry,\forcelinebreak
And towers squatting graven and cold\forcelinebreak
On the velvet bales of the dark,\forcelinebreak
And the Singer’s appraising\forcelinebreak
Indolent idol’s eye,\forcelinebreak
And night like a purple cloth unrolled—

Nebulous gold\forcelinebreak
Throwing an ephemeral glory about life’s vanishing points,\forcelinebreak
Wherein you burn\dots{}\forcelinebreak
You of unknown voltage\forcelinebreak
Whirling on your axis\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Scrawling vermillion signatures\forcelinebreak
Over the night’s velvet hoarding\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Insolent, towering spherical\forcelinebreak
To apices ever shifting.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Broadway}



\begin{verse}
Light!\forcelinebreak
Innumerable ions of light,\forcelinebreak
Kindling, irradiating,\forcelinebreak
All to their foci tending\dots{}

Light that jingles like anklet chains\forcelinebreak
On bevies of little lithe twinkling feet,\forcelinebreak
Or clingles in myriad vibrations\forcelinebreak
Like trillions of porcelain\forcelinebreak
Vases shattering\dots{}

Light over the laminae of roofs,\forcelinebreak
Diffusing in shimmering nebulae\forcelinebreak
About the night’s boundaries,\forcelinebreak
Or billowing in pearly foam\forcelinebreak
Submerging the low-lying stars\dots{}

Light for the feast prolonged—\forcelinebreak
Captive light in the goblets quivering\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Sparks evanescent\forcelinebreak
Struck of meeting looks—\forcelinebreak
Fringed eyelids leashing\forcelinebreak
Sheathed and leaping lights\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Infinite bubbles of light\forcelinebreak
Bursting, reforming\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Silvery filings of light\forcelinebreak
Incessantly falling\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Scintillant, sided dust of light\forcelinebreak
Out of the white flares of Broadway—\forcelinebreak
Like a great spurious diamond\forcelinebreak
In the night’s corsage faceted\dots{}

Broadway,\forcelinebreak
In ambuscades of light,\forcelinebreak
Drawing the charmed multitudes\forcelinebreak
With the slow suction of her breath—\forcelinebreak
Dangling her naked soul\forcelinebreak
Behind the blinding gold of eunuch lights\forcelinebreak
That wind about her like a bodyguard.

Or like a huge serpent, iridescent-scaled,\forcelinebreak
Trailing her coruscating length\forcelinebreak
Over the night prostrate—\forcelinebreak
Triumphant poised,\forcelinebreak
Her hydra heads above the avenues,\forcelinebreak
Values appraising\forcelinebreak
And her avid eyes\forcelinebreak
Glistening with eternal watchfulness\dots{}

Broadway—\forcelinebreak
Out of her towers rampant,\forcelinebreak
Like an unsubtle courtezan\forcelinebreak
Reserving nought for some adventurous night.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Flotsam}



\begin{verse}
Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;\forcelinebreak
Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth;\forcelinebreak
High-flung signs\forcelinebreak
Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes;\forcelinebreak
Girls in black\forcelinebreak
Circling monotonously\forcelinebreak
About the orange lights\dots{}

Nothing to guess at\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Save the darkness above\forcelinebreak
Crouching like a great cat.

In the dim-lit square,\forcelinebreak
Where dishevelled trees\forcelinebreak
Tustle with the wind—the wind like a scythe\forcelinebreak
Mowing their last leaves—\forcelinebreak
Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze—\forcelinebreak
Pale oval arcs\forcelinebreak
Like ailing virgins,\forcelinebreak
Each out of a halo circumscribed,\forcelinebreak
Pallidly staring\dots{}

Figures drift upon the benches\forcelinebreak
With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling—\forcelinebreak
Slovenly figures like untied parcels,\forcelinebreak
And papers wrapped about their knees\forcelinebreak
Huddled one to the other,\forcelinebreak
Cringing to the wind—\forcelinebreak
The sided wind,\forcelinebreak
Leaving no breach untried\dots{}

So many and all so still\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The fountain slobbering its stone basin\forcelinebreak
Is louder than They—\forcelinebreak
Flotsam of the five oceans\forcelinebreak
Here on this raft of the world.

This old man’s head\forcelinebreak
Has found a woman’s shoulder.\forcelinebreak
The wind juggles with her shawl\forcelinebreak
That flaps about them like a sail,\forcelinebreak
And splashes her red faded hair\forcelinebreak
Over the salt stubble of his chin.\forcelinebreak
A light foam is on his lips,\forcelinebreak
As though dreams surged in him\forcelinebreak
Breaking and ebbing away\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the bare boughs shuffle above him\forcelinebreak
And the twigs rattle like dice\dots{}

She—diffused like a broken beetle—\forcelinebreak
Sprawls without grace,\forcelinebreak
Her face gray as asphalt,\forcelinebreak
Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Shadows ply about her mouth—\forcelinebreak
Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree,\forcelinebreak
That dances above her its dance of dry bones.
\end{verse}

\section{II}



\begin{verse}
A uniformed front,\forcelinebreak
Paunched;\forcelinebreak
A glance like a blow,\forcelinebreak
The swing of an arm,\forcelinebreak
Verved, vigorous;\forcelinebreak
Boot-heels clanking\forcelinebreak
In metallic rhythm;\forcelinebreak
The blows of a baton,\forcelinebreak
Quick, staccato\dots{}

—There is a rustling along the benches\forcelinebreak
As of dried leaves raked over\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand,\forcelinebreak
Tucking the displaced paper about his knees.

Colder\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And a frost under foot,\forcelinebreak
Acid, corroding,\forcelinebreak
Eating through worn bootsoles.

Drab forms blur into greenish vapor.\forcelinebreak
Through boughs like cross-bones,\forcelinebreak
Pale arcs flare and shiver\forcelinebreak
Like lilies in a wind.

High over Broadway\forcelinebreak
A far-flung sign\forcelinebreak
Glitters in indigo darkness\forcelinebreak
And spurts again rhythmically,\forcelinebreak
Spraying great drops\forcelinebreak
Red as a hemorrhage.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Spring}



\begin{verse}
A spring wind on the Bowery,\forcelinebreak
Blowing the fluff of night shelters\forcelinebreak
Off bedraggled garments,\forcelinebreak
And agitating the gutters, that eject little spirals of vapor\forcelinebreak
Like lewd growths.

Bare-legged children stamp in the puddles, splashing each other,\forcelinebreak
One—with a choir-boy’s face\forcelinebreak
Twits me as I pass\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The word, like a muddied drop,\forcelinebreak
Seems to roll over and not out of\forcelinebreak
The bowed lips,\forcelinebreak
Yet dewy red\forcelinebreak
And sweetly immature.

People sniff the air with an upward look—\forcelinebreak
Even the mite of a girl\forcelinebreak
Who never plays\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Her mother smiles at her\forcelinebreak
With eyes like vacant lots\forcelinebreak
Rimming vistas of mean streets\forcelinebreak
And endless washing days\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Yet with sun on the lines\forcelinebreak
And a drying breeze.

The old candy woman\forcelinebreak
Shivers in the young wind.\forcelinebreak
Her eyes—littered with memories\forcelinebreak
Like ancient garrets,\forcelinebreak
Or dusty unaired rooms where someone died—\forcelinebreak
Ask nothing of the spring.

But a pale pink dream\forcelinebreak
Trembles about this young girl’s body,\forcelinebreak
Draping it like a glowing aura.

She gloats in a mirror\forcelinebreak
Over her gaudy hat,\forcelinebreak
With its flower God never thought of\dots{}

And the dream, unrestrained,\forcelinebreak
Floats about the loins of a soldier,\forcelinebreak
Where it quivers a moment,\forcelinebreak
Warming to a crimson\forcelinebreak
Like the scarf of a toreador\dots{}

But the delicate gossamer breaks at his contact\forcelinebreak
And recoils to her in strands of shattered rose.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Bowery Afternoon}



\begin{verse}
Drab discoloration\forcelinebreak
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops,\forcelinebreak
Second-hand clothing,\forcelinebreak
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,\forcelinebreak
Odors of rancid life\dots{}

Deadly uniformity\forcelinebreak
Of eyes and windows\forcelinebreak
Alike devoid of light\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Holes wherein life scratches—\forcelinebreak
Mangy life\forcelinebreak
Nosing to the gutter’s end\dots{}

Show-rooms and mimic pillars\forcelinebreak
Flaunting out of their gaudy vestibules\forcelinebreak
Bosoms and posturing thighs\dots{}

Over all the Elevated\forcelinebreak
Droning like a bloated fly.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Promenade}



\begin{verse}
~~~~~Undulant rustlings,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of oncoming silk,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Rhythmic, incessant,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Like the motion of leaves\dots{}\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Fragments of color\forcelinebreak
~~~~~In glowing surprises\dots{}\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Pink inuendoes\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Hooded in gray\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Like buds in a cobweb\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Pearled at dawn\dots{}\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Glimpses of green\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And blurs of gold\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And delicate mauves\forcelinebreak
~~~~~That snatch at youth\dots{}\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And bodies all rosily\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Fleshed for the airing,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~In warm velvety surges\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Passing imperious, slow\dots{}

Women drift into the limousines\forcelinebreak
That shut like silken caskets\forcelinebreak
On gems half weary of their glittering\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Lamps open like pale moon flowers\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Arcs are radiant opals\forcelinebreak
Strewn along the dusk\dots{}\forcelinebreak
No common lights invade.\forcelinebreak
And spires rise like litanies—\forcelinebreak
Magnificats of stone\forcelinebreak
Over the white silence of the arcs,\forcelinebreak
Burning in perpetual adoration.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Fog}



\begin{verse}
Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk—\forcelinebreak
Snaring, illuding, concealing,\forcelinebreak
Magically conjuring—\forcelinebreak
Turning to fairy-coaches\forcelinebreak
Beetle-backed limousines\forcelinebreak
Scampering under the great Arch—\forcelinebreak
Making a decoy of blue overalls\forcelinebreak
And mystery of a scarlet shawl—\forcelinebreak
Indolently—\forcelinebreak
Knowing no impediment of its sure advance—\forcelinebreak
Descends the fog.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Faces}



\begin{verse}
A late snow beats\forcelinebreak
With cold white fists upon the tenements—\forcelinebreak
Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters,\forcelinebreak
Like tall old slatterns\forcelinebreak
Pulling aprons about their heads.

Lights slanting out of Mott Street\forcelinebreak
Gibber out,\forcelinebreak
Or dribble through bar-room slits,\forcelinebreak
Anonymous shapes\forcelinebreak
Conniving behind shuttered panes\forcelinebreak
Caper and disappear\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Where the Bowery\forcelinebreak
Is throbbing like a fistula\forcelinebreak
Back of her ice-scabbed fronts.

Livid faces\forcelinebreak
Glimmer in furtive doorways,\forcelinebreak
Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys,\forcelinebreak
Smears of faces like muddied beads,\forcelinebreak
Making a ghastly rosary\forcelinebreak
The night mumbles over\forcelinebreak
And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Patrolling arcs\forcelinebreak
Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line\forcelinebreak
Stalk them as they pass,\forcelinebreak
Silent as though accouched of the darkness,\forcelinebreak
And the wind noses among them,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Like a skunk\forcelinebreak
That roots about the heart\dots{}

Colder:\forcelinebreak
And the Elevated slams upon the silence\forcelinebreak
Like a ponderous door.\forcelinebreak
Then all is still again,\forcelinebreak
Save for the wind fumbling over\forcelinebreak
The emptily swaying faces—\forcelinebreak
The wind rummaging\forcelinebreak
Like an old Jew\dots{}

Faces in glimmering rows\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(No sign of the abject life—\forcelinebreak
Not even a blasphemy\dots{})\forcelinebreak
But the spindle legs keep time\forcelinebreak
To a limping rhythm,\forcelinebreak
And the shadows twitch upon the snow\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Convulsively—\forcelinebreak
As though death played\forcelinebreak
With some ungainly dolls.
\end{verse}

\part{Labor}

\chapter{Debris}



\begin{verse}
I love those spirits\forcelinebreak
That men stand off and point at,\forcelinebreak
Or shudder and hood up their souls—\forcelinebreak
Those ruined ones,\forcelinebreak
Where Liberty has lodged an hour\forcelinebreak
And passed like flame,\forcelinebreak
Bursting asunder the too small house.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Dedication}



\begin{verse}
I would be a torch unto your hand,\forcelinebreak
A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,\forcelinebreak
In the wild darkness before the Dawn\forcelinebreak
That I shall never see\dots{}

We shall advance together, my Beloved,\forcelinebreak
Awaiting the mighty ushering\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Together we shall make the last grand charge\forcelinebreak
And ride with gorgeous Death\forcelinebreak
With all her spangles on\forcelinebreak
And cymbals clashing\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And you shall rush on exultant as I fall—\forcelinebreak
Scattering a brief fire about your feet\dots{}

Let it be so\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Better—while life is quick\forcelinebreak
And every pain immense and joy supreme,\forcelinebreak
And all I have and am\forcelinebreak
Flames upward to the dream\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn,\forcelinebreak
Burning out the wick.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Song of Iron}

\section{I}



\begin{verse}
Not yet hast Thou sounded\forcelinebreak
Thy clangorous music,\forcelinebreak
Whose strings are under the mountains\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Not yet hast Thou spoken\forcelinebreak
The blooded, implacable Word\dots{}

But I hear in the Iron singing—\forcelinebreak
In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding—\forcelinebreak
Thy barbaric exhortation\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved,\forcelinebreak
Answering Thy call\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice,\forcelinebreak
And sings exultant with the Iron,\forcelinebreak
For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen\dots{}

Oh fashioned in fire—\forcelinebreak
Needing flame for Thy ultimate word—\forcelinebreak
Behold me, a cupola\forcelinebreak
Poured to Thy use!

Heed not my tremulous body\forcelinebreak
That faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet.\forcelinebreak
Break it\dots{} and cast it aside\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But make of my spirit\forcelinebreak
That dares and endures\forcelinebreak
Thy crucible\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Pour through my soul\forcelinebreak
Thy molten, world-whelming song.

\dots{} Here at Thy uttermost gate\forcelinebreak
Like a new Mary, I wait\dots{}
\end{verse}

\section{II}



\begin{verse}
Charge the blast furnace, workman\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Open the valves—\forcelinebreak
Drive the fires high\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Night is above the gates).

How golden-hot the ore is\forcelinebreak
From the cupola spurting,\forcelinebreak
Tossing the flaming petals\forcelinebreak
Over the silt and furnace ash—\forcelinebreak
Blown leaves, devastating,\forcelinebreak
Falling about the world\dots{}

Out of the furnace mouth—\forcelinebreak
Out of the giant mouth—\forcelinebreak
The raging, turgid, mouth—\forcelinebreak
Fall fiery blossoms\forcelinebreak
Gold with the gold of buttercups\forcelinebreak
In a field at sunset,\forcelinebreak
Or huskier gold of dandelions,\forcelinebreak
Warmed in sun-leavings,\forcelinebreak
Or changing to the paler hue\forcelinebreak
At the creamy hearts of primroses.

Charge the converter, workman—\forcelinebreak
Tired from the long night?\forcelinebreak
But the earth shall suck up darkness—\forcelinebreak
The earth that holds so much\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And out of these molten flowers,\forcelinebreak
Shall shape the heavy fruit\dots{}

Then open the valves—\forcelinebreak
Drive the fires high,\forcelinebreak
Your blossoms nurturing.\forcelinebreak
(Day is at the gates\forcelinebreak
And a young wind\dots{})

Put by your rod, comrade,\forcelinebreak
And look with me, shading your eyes\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Do you not see—\forcelinebreak
Through the lucent haze\forcelinebreak
Out of the converter rising—\forcelinebreak
In the spirals of fire\forcelinebreak
Smiting and blinding,\forcelinebreak
A shadowy shape\forcelinebreak
White as a flame of sacrifice,\forcelinebreak
Like a lily swaying?
\end{verse}

\section{III}



\begin{verse}
The ore leaping in the crucibles,\forcelinebreak
The ore communicant,\forcelinebreak
Sending faint thrills along the leads\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Fire is running along the roots of the mountains\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I feel the long recoil of earth\forcelinebreak
As under a mighty quickening\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron\dots{})\forcelinebreak
All palpitant, I wait\dots{}
\end{verse}

\section{IV}



\begin{verse}
Here ye, Dictators—late Lords of the Iron,\forcelinebreak
Shut in your council rooms, palsied, depowered—\forcelinebreak
The blooded, implacable Word?\forcelinebreak
Not whispered in cloture, one to the other,\forcelinebreak
(Brother in fear of the fear of his brother\dots{})\forcelinebreak
But chanted and thundered\forcelinebreak
On the brazen, articulate tongues of the Iron\forcelinebreak
Babbling in flame\dots{}

Sung to the rhythm of prisons dismantled,\forcelinebreak
Manacles riven and ramparts defaced\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling\dots{})\forcelinebreak
Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced\dots{}

Sung to the rhythm of arsenals burning\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Clangor of iron smashing on iron,\forcelinebreak
Turmoil of metal and dissonant baying\forcelinebreak
Of mail-sided monsters shattered asunder\dots{}

Hulks of black turbines all mangled and roaring,\forcelinebreak
Battering egress through ramparted walls\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Mouthing of engines, made rabid with power,\forcelinebreak
Into the holocaust snorting and plunging\dots{}

Mighty converters torn from their axis,\forcelinebreak
Flung to the furnaces, vomiting fire,\forcelinebreak
Jumbled in white-heaten masses disshapen\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Writhing in flame-tortured levers of iron\dots{}

Gnashing of steel serpents twisting and dying\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Shock of leviathans prone on each other\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying\forcelinebreak
In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron,\forcelinebreak
Tasting the turbulent fury of living,\forcelinebreak
Mad with a moment’s exuberant living!\forcelinebreak
Crash of devastating hammers despoiling..\forcelinebreak
Hands inexorable, marring\forcelinebreak
What hands had so cunningly moulded\dots{}

Structures of steel welded, subtily tempered,\forcelinebreak
Marvelous wrought of the wizards of ore,\forcelinebreak
Torn into octaves discordantly clashing,\forcelinebreak
Chords never final but onward progressing\forcelinebreak
In monstrous fusion of sound ever smiting on sound\forcelinebreak
~~~~~in mad vortices whirling\dots{}

Till the ear, tortured, shrieks for cessation\forcelinebreak
Of the raving inharmonies hatefully mingling\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The fierce obligato the steel pipes are screaming\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The blare of the rude molten music of Iron\dots{}
\end{verse}

\chapter{Frank Little at Calvary}

\section{I}



\begin{verse}
He walked under the shadow of the Hill\forcelinebreak
Where men are fed into the fires\forcelinebreak
And walled apart\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Unarmed and alone,\forcelinebreak
He summoned his mates from the pit’s mouth\forcelinebreak
Where tools rested on the floors\forcelinebreak
And great cranes swung\forcelinebreak
Unemptied, on the iron girders.\forcelinebreak
And they, who were the Lords of the Hill,\forcelinebreak
Were seized with a great fear,\forcelinebreak
When they heard out of the silence of wheels\forcelinebreak
The answer ringing\forcelinebreak
In endless reverberations\forcelinebreak
Under the mountain\dots{}

So they covered up their faces\forcelinebreak
And crept upon him as he slept\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Out of eye-holes in black cloth\forcelinebreak
They looked upon him who had flung\forcelinebreak
Between them and their ancient prey\forcelinebreak
The frail barricade of his life\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And when night—that has connived at so much—\forcelinebreak
Was heavy with the unborn day,\forcelinebreak
They haled him from his bed\dots{}

Who might know of that wild ride?\forcelinebreak
Only the bleak Hill—\forcelinebreak
The red Hill, vigilant,\forcelinebreak
Like a blood-shot eye\forcelinebreak
In the black mask of night—\forcelinebreak
Dared watch them as they raced\forcelinebreak
By each blind-folded street\forcelinebreak
Godiva might have ridden down\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But when they stopped beside the Place,\forcelinebreak
I know he turned his face\forcelinebreak
Wistfully to the accessory night\dots{}

And when he saw—against the sky,\forcelinebreak
Sagged like a silken net\forcelinebreak
Under its load of stars—\forcelinebreak
The black bridge poised\forcelinebreak
Like a gigantic spider motionless\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I know there was a silence in his heart,\forcelinebreak
As of a frozen sea,\forcelinebreak
Where some half lifted arm, mid-way\forcelinebreak
Wavers, and drops heavily\dots{}

I know he waved to life,\forcelinebreak
And that life signaled back, transcending space,\forcelinebreak
To each high-powered sense,\forcelinebreak
So that he missed no gesture of the wind\forcelinebreak
Drawing the shut leaves close\dots{}\forcelinebreak
So that he saw the light on comrades’ faces\forcelinebreak
Of camp fires out of sight\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the savor of meat and bread\forcelinebreak
Blew in his nostrils\dots{} and the breath\forcelinebreak
Of unrailed spaces\forcelinebreak
Where shut wild clover smelled as sweet\forcelinebreak
As a virgin in her bed.

I know he looked once at America,\forcelinebreak
Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe,\forcelinebreak
And once at the skies whirling above him\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Then all that he had spoken against\forcelinebreak
And struck against and thrust against\forcelinebreak
Over the frail barricade of his life\forcelinebreak
Rushed between him and the stars\dots{}
\end{verse}

\section{II}



\begin{verse}
Life thunders on\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Over the black bridge\forcelinebreak
The line of lighted cars\forcelinebreak
Creeps like a monstrous serpent\forcelinebreak
Spooring gold\dots{}

Watchman, what of the track?

Night\dots{} silence\dots{} stars\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All’s Well!
\end{verse}

\section{III}



\begin{verse}
Light\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Breaking mists\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold\dots{})\forcelinebreak
Light over the pit mouths,\forcelinebreak
Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.)\forcelinebreak
Light\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Gleaming metallic and cold\forcelinebreak
In numberless slivers of steel\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Light over the trestles and the iron clips\forcelinebreak
Of the black bridge—poised like a gigantic spider motionless—\forcelinebreak
Sweet inquisition of light, like a child’s wonder\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Intrusive, innocently staring light\forcelinebreak
That nothing appals\dots{}

Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves,\forcelinebreak
Cooing and calling\forcelinebreak
All winged and avid things\forcelinebreak
Waking the early flies, keen to the scent\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Green-jeweled iridescent flies\forcelinebreak
Unerringly steering—\forcelinebreak
Swarming over the blackened lips,\forcelinebreak
The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold\dots{}

Watchman, what of the Hill?

Wheels turn;\forcelinebreak
The laden cars\forcelinebreak
Go rumbling to the mill,\forcelinebreak
And Labor walks beside the mules\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All’s Well with the Hill!
\end{verse}

\chapter{Spires}



\begin{verse}
Spires of Grace Church,\forcelinebreak
For you the workers of the world\forcelinebreak
Travailed with the mountains\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Aborting their own dreams\forcelinebreak
Till the dream of you arose—\forcelinebreak
Beautiful, swaddled in stone—\forcelinebreak
Scorning their hands.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Legion of Iron}



\begin{verse}
They pass through the great iron gates—\forcelinebreak
Men with eyes gravely discerning,\forcelinebreak
Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes\forcelinebreak
Or split an inch into thousandths—\forcelinebreak
Men tempered by fire as the ore is\forcelinebreak
And planned to resistance\forcelinebreak
Like steel that has cooled in the trough;\forcelinebreak
Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment—\forcelinebreak
To conquer, withstand, overthrow\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Men mannered to large undertakings,\forcelinebreak
Knowing force as a brother\forcelinebreak
And power as something to play with,\forcelinebreak
Seeing blood as a slip of the iron,\forcelinebreak
To be wiped from the tools\forcelinebreak
Lest they rust.

But what if they stood aside,\forcelinebreak
Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?

What of the flamboyant cities\forcelinebreak
And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the armies halted\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the train mid-way on the mountain\forcelinebreak
And idle men chaffing across the trenches\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the cursing and lamentation\forcelinebreak
And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world?\forcelinebreak
What if they stayed apart,\forcelinebreak
Inscrutably smiling,\forcelinebreak
Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire\forcelinebreak
And the sea to row-boats\forcelinebreak
And the lands marooned—\forcelinebreak
Till Time should like a paralytic sit,\forcelinebreak
A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?
\end{verse}

\chapter{Fuel}



\begin{verse}
What of the silence of the keys\forcelinebreak
And silvery hands? The iron sings\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Though bows lie broken on the strings,\forcelinebreak
The fly-wheels turn eternally\dots{}

Bring fuel—drive the fires high\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Throw all this artist-lumber in\forcelinebreak
And foolish dreams of making things\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Ten million men are called to die.)

As for the common men apart,\forcelinebreak
Who sweat to keep their common breath,\forcelinebreak
And have no hour for books or art—\forcelinebreak
What dreams have these to hide from death!
\end{verse}

\chapter{A Toast}



\begin{verse}
Not your martyrs anointed of heaven—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~The ages are red where they trod—\forcelinebreak
But the Hunted—the world’s bitter leaven—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Who smote at your imbecile God—

A being to pander and fawn to,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~To propitiate, flatter and dread\forcelinebreak
As a thing that your souls are in pawn to,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~A Dealer who traffics the dead;

A Trader with greed never sated,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Who barters the souls in his snares,\forcelinebreak
That were trapped in the lusts he created,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~For incense and masses and prayers—

They are crushed in the coils of your halters;\forcelinebreak
~~~~~‘Twere well—by the creeds ye have nursed—\forcelinebreak
That ye send up a cry from your altars,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~A mass for the Martyrs Accursed;

A passionate prayer from reprieval\forcelinebreak
~~~~~For the Brotherhood not understood—\forcelinebreak
For the Heroes who died for the evil,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Believing the evil was good.

To the Breakers, the Bold, the Despoilers,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Who dreamed of a world over-thrown\dots{}\forcelinebreak
They who died for the millions of toilers—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Few—fronting the nations alone!

—To the Outlawed of men and the Branded,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Whether hated or hating they fell—\forcelinebreak
I pledge the devoted, red-handed,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Unfaltering Heroes of Hell!
\end{verse}

\part{Accidentals}

\chapter{“The Everlasting Return”}



\begin{verse}
It is dark\dots{} so dark, I remember the sun on Chios\dots{}\forcelinebreak
It is still\dots{} so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean\dots{}

Ten times we had watched the moon\forcelinebreak
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters\forcelinebreak
And round into a full maternity\dots{}\forcelinebreak
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh\forcelinebreak
Save the man flesh on either hand\forcelinebreak
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.

The Athenian boy sat on my left\dots{}\forcelinebreak
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian,\forcelinebreak
Grinning Phildar\forcelinebreak
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth.\forcelinebreak
Many a whip had coiled about him\forcelinebreak
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels,\forcelinebreak
And his skin was red and tough as a bull’s hide cured in the sun.\forcelinebreak
He did not sing like the other slaves,\forcelinebreak
But when a big wind came up he screamed with it.\forcelinebreak
And always he looked out to sea,\forcelinebreak
Save when he tore at his fish ends\forcelinebreak
Or spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart\forcelinebreak
~~~~~like an opened fruit.

We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern.\forcelinebreak
She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea.\forcelinebreak
All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears,\forcelinebreak
And when night came on\forcelinebreak
And little naked stars dabbled in the water\forcelinebreak
And half the crouching moon\forcelinebreak
Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light,\forcelinebreak
We heard them singing at their oars\dots{}\forcelinebreak
We who had no breath for song.

There was no sound in our boat\forcelinebreak
Save the clingle of wrist chains\forcelinebreak
And the sobbing of the young Greek.\forcelinebreak
I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I cursed him that his oar kept ill time\dots{}\forcelinebreak
When he looked at me I cursed him again,\forcelinebreak
That his eyes were soft as a woman’s.

How long\dots{} since their last shell gouged our batteries?\forcelinebreak
How long\dots{} since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern?\forcelinebreak
(It was the damned green moon that nosed us out\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame\dots{})

They loosed each man’s right hand\forcelinebreak
As the galley spent on our decks\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And amazed and bloodied we reared half up\forcelinebreak
And fought askew with the left hand shackled\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets\forcelinebreak
And knotted our thews like string\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten\dots{}

How long\dots{} since our gauges fell\forcelinebreak
And the sea shoved us under?\forcelinebreak
It is dark\dots{} so dark\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Darkness presses hairy-hot\forcelinebreak
Where three make crowded company\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the rank steel smells\dots{}\forcelinebreak
It is still\dots{} so still\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I seem to hear the wind\forcelinebreak
On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above\dots{}



It was still\dots{} so still\dots{} we three that were left alive\forcelinebreak
Stared in each other’s faces\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But three make bitter company at one man’s bread\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon’s edge in the water.

One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And one shivered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But one struck with his hate in his hand\dots{}

After that I remember\forcelinebreak
Only the dead men’s oars that flapped in the sea\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The dead men’s oars that rattled and clicked like idiots’ tongues.

It is still\dots{} so still, with the jargon of engines quiet.\forcelinebreak
We three awaiting the crunch of the sea\forcelinebreak
Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other’s faces\dots{}\forcelinebreak
We three sheathing hate in our hearts\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But when hate shall have made its circuit,\forcelinebreak
Our bones will be loving company\forcelinebreak
Here in the sea’s den\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And one whimpers and cries on his God\forcelinebreak
And one sits sullenly\forcelinebreak
But both draw away from me\dots{}\forcelinebreak
For I am the pyre their memories burn on\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Like black flames leaping\forcelinebreak
Our fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The sea that kneels above us\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And makes no sign.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Palestine}



\begin{verse}
Old plant of Asia—\forcelinebreak
Mutilated vine\forcelinebreak
Holding earth’s leaping sap\forcelinebreak
In every stem and shoot\forcelinebreak
That lopped off, sprouts again—\forcelinebreak
Why should you seek a plateau walled about,\forcelinebreak
Whose garden is the world?
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Song}



\begin{verse}
That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks\forcelinebreak
~~~~~on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron,\forcelinebreak
And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine\forcelinebreak
~~~~~floating like cotton-down,\forcelinebreak
And the harsh and terrible screaming,\forcelinebreak
And that strange vibration at the roots of us\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Desire, fierce, like a song\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And we heard\forcelinebreak
(Do you remember?)\forcelinebreak
All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue\forcelinebreak
And bugles in little home towns\forcelinebreak
And children’s harmonicas bleating

~~~~~America!

And after\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Do you remember?)\forcelinebreak
The drollery of the wind on our faces,\forcelinebreak
And horizons reeling,\forcelinebreak
And the terror of the plain\forcelinebreak
Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Under us—threshing and twanging\forcelinebreak
Torn-up roots of the Song\dots{}
\end{verse}

\chapter{To The Others}



\begin{verse}
I see you, refulgent ones,\forcelinebreak
Burning so steadily\forcelinebreak
Like big white arc lights\dots{}\forcelinebreak
There are so many of you.\forcelinebreak
I like to watch you weaving—\forcelinebreak
Altogether and with precision\forcelinebreak
Each his ray—\forcelinebreak
Your tracery of light,\forcelinebreak
Making a shining way about America.

I note your infinite reactions—\forcelinebreak
In glassware\forcelinebreak
And sequin\forcelinebreak
And puddles\forcelinebreak
And bits of jet—\forcelinebreak
And here and there a diamond\dots{}

But you do not yet see me,\forcelinebreak
Who am a torch blown along the wind,\forcelinebreak
Flickering to a spark\forcelinebreak
But never out.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Babel}



\begin{verse}
Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel—\forcelinebreak
Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul,\forcelinebreak
So that never again should men be able\forcelinebreak
To fashion one infinite, towering whole.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Fiddler}



\begin{verse}
In a little Hungarian cafe\forcelinebreak
Men and women are drinking\forcelinebreak
Yellow wine in tall goblets.

Through the milky haze of the smoke,\forcelinebreak
The fiddler, under-sized, blond,\forcelinebreak
Leans to his violin\forcelinebreak
As to the breast of a woman.\forcelinebreak
Red hair kindles to fire\forcelinebreak
On the black of his coat-sleeve,\forcelinebreak
Where his white thin hand\forcelinebreak
Trembles and dives,\forcelinebreak
Like a sliver of moonlight,\forcelinebreak
When wind has broken the water.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Dawn Wind}



\begin{verse}
Wind, just arisen—\forcelinebreak
(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss\forcelinebreak
In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,\forcelinebreak
Or niche of cliff under the eagles?)\forcelinebreak
You of living things,\forcelinebreak
So gay and tender and full of play—\forcelinebreak
Why do you blow on my thoughts—like cut flowers\forcelinebreak
Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?

I see you\forcelinebreak
Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation\forcelinebreak
And frisking away,\forcelinebreak
Deliciously rumpling the grass\dots{}

So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle,\forcelinebreak
Prattling of fields\forcelinebreak
Before I had had my milk\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One?\forcelinebreak
I—swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.

Let be\forcelinebreak
My dreams that crackle under your breath\dots{}\forcelinebreak
You have the dust of the world to blow on\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Do not tag me and dance away, looking back\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I am too old to play with you,\forcelinebreak
Eternal Child.
\end{verse}

\chapter{North Wind}



\begin{verse}
I love you, malcontent\forcelinebreak
Male wind—\forcelinebreak
Shaking the pollen from a flower\forcelinebreak
Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.

Blow on and over my dreams\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Scatter my sick dreams\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Throw your lusty arms about me\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Envelop all my hot body\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Carry me to pine forests—\forcelinebreak
Great, rough-bearded forests\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Bring me to stark plains and steppes\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I would have the North to-night—\forcelinebreak
The cold, enduring North.

And if we should meet the Snow,\forcelinebreak
Whirling in spirals,\forcelinebreak
And he should blind my eyes\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Ally, you will defend me—\forcelinebreak
You will hold me close,\forcelinebreak
Blowing on my eyelids.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Destroyer}



\begin{verse}
I am of the wind\dots{}\forcelinebreak
A wisp of the battering wind\dots{}

I trail my fingers along the Alps\forcelinebreak
And an avalanche falls in my wake\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I feel in my quivering length\forcelinebreak
When it buries the hamlet beneath\dots{}

I hurriedly sweep aside\forcelinebreak
The cities that clutter our path\dots{}\forcelinebreak
As we whirl about the circle of the globe\dots{}\forcelinebreak
As we tear at the pillars of the world\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Open to the wind,\forcelinebreak
The Destroyer!\forcelinebreak
The wind that is battering at your gates.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Lullaby}



\begin{verse}
Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(There’s a shout at the door an’ a big red light\dots{})\forcelinebreak
Lil’ coon baby, mammy is down\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Han’s that hold yuh are steady an’ white\dots{}

Look piccaninny—such a gran’ blaze\forcelinebreak
Lickin’ up the roof an’ the sticks of home—\forcelinebreak
Ever see the like in all yo’ days!\forcelinebreak
—Cain’t yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?

Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky!\forcelinebreak
Look at the cherries driftin’ by—\forcelinebreak
Bright red cherries spilled on the groun’—\forcelinebreak
Piping-hot cherries at nuthin’ a poun’!

Hush, mah lil’ black-bug—doan yuh weep.\forcelinebreak
Daddy’s run away an’ mammy’s in a heap\forcelinebreak
By her own fron’ door in the blazin’ heat\forcelinebreak
Outah the shacks like warts on the street\dots{}

An’ the singin’ flame an’ the gleeful crowd\forcelinebreak
Circlin’ aroun’\dots{} won’t mammy be proud!\forcelinebreak
With a stone at her hade an’ a stone on her heart,\forcelinebreak
An’ her mouth like a red plum, broken apart\dots{}

See where the blue an’ khaki prance,\forcelinebreak
Adding brave colors to the dance\forcelinebreak
About the big bonfire white folks make—\forcelinebreak
Such gran’ doin’s fo’ a lil’ coon’s sake!

Hear all the eagah feet runnin’ in town—\forcelinebreak
See all the willin’ han’s reach outah night—\forcelinebreak
Han’s that are wonderful, steady an’ white!\forcelinebreak
To toss up a lil’ babe, blinkin’ an’ brown\dots{}

Rock-a-by baby—higher an’ higher!\forcelinebreak
Mammy is sleepin’ an’ daddy’s run lame\dots{}\forcelinebreak
(Soun’ may yuh sleep in yo’ cradle o’ fire!)\forcelinebreak
Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame\dots{}

(An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women\forcelinebreak
flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.)
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Foundling}



\begin{verse}
Snow wraiths circle us\forcelinebreak
Like washers of the dead,\forcelinebreak
Flapping their white wet cloths\forcelinebreak
Impatiently\forcelinebreak
About the grizzled head,\forcelinebreak
Where the coarse hair mats like grass,\forcelinebreak
And the efficient wind\forcelinebreak
With cold professional baste\forcelinebreak
Probes like a lancet\forcelinebreak
Through the cotton shirt\dots{}

About us are white cliffs and space.\forcelinebreak
No façades show,\forcelinebreak
Nor roof nor any spire\dots{}\forcelinebreak
All sheathed in snow\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The parasitic snow\forcelinebreak
That clings about them like a blight.

Only detached lights\forcelinebreak
Float hazily like greenish moons,\forcelinebreak
And endlessly\forcelinebreak
Down the whore-street,\forcelinebreak
Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm,\forcelinebreak
The blizzard waltzes with the night.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Woman With Jewels}



\begin{verse}
The woman with jewels sits in the cafe,\forcelinebreak
Spraying light like a fountain.\forcelinebreak
Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers\forcelinebreak
And on her arms, great as thighs,\forcelinebreak
Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat.\forcelinebreak
She is obesely beautiful.\forcelinebreak
Her eyes are full of bleared lights,\forcelinebreak
Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And her mouth is scarlet and full—only a little crumpled—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~like a flower that has been pressed apart\dots{}

Why does she come alone to this obscure basement—\forcelinebreak
She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her\forcelinebreak
~~~~~on either side?

She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~spilling the soup.\forcelinebreak
The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs\forcelinebreak
~~~~~in their silken fleshings\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The mountainous breasts tremble\dots{}\forcelinebreak
There is an agitation in her gems,\forcelinebreak
That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays\dots{}\forcelinebreak
She erupts explosive breaths\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Every step is an adventure\forcelinebreak
From this\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The serpent’s tooth\forcelinebreak
Saved Cleopatra.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Submerged}



\begin{verse}
I have known only my own shallows—\forcelinebreak
Safe, plumbed places,\forcelinebreak
Where I was wont to preen myself.

But for the abyss\forcelinebreak
I wanted a plank beneath\forcelinebreak
And horizons\dots{}

I was afraid of the silence\forcelinebreak
And the slipping toe-hold\dots{}

Oh, could I now dive\forcelinebreak
Into the unexplored deeps of me—\forcelinebreak
Delve and bring up and give\forcelinebreak
All that is submerged, encased, unfolded,\forcelinebreak
That is yet the best.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Art and Life}



\begin{verse}
When Art goes bounding, lean,\forcelinebreak
Up hill-tops fired green\forcelinebreak
To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen\forcelinebreak
Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile,\forcelinebreak
Sits old and chill\forcelinebreak
On sidings shaven clean,\forcelinebreak
And counts his clustering\forcelinebreak
Dead daisies on a string\forcelinebreak
With witless laughter\dots{}

Then like a new Jill\forcelinebreak
Toiling up a hill\forcelinebreak
Life scrambles after.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Brooklyn Bridge}



\begin{verse}
Pythoness body—arching\forcelinebreak
Over the night like an ecstasy—\forcelinebreak
I feel your coils tightening\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the world’s lessening breath.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Dreams}



\begin{verse}
Men die\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Dreams only change their houses.\forcelinebreak
They cannot be lined up against a wall\forcelinebreak
And quietly buried under ground,\forcelinebreak
And no more heard of\dots{}\forcelinebreak
However deep the pit and heaped the clay—\forcelinebreak
Like seedlings of old time\forcelinebreak
Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world—\forcelinebreak
Dreams will to light.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Fire}



\begin{verse}
The old men of the world have made a fire\forcelinebreak
To warm their trembling hands.\forcelinebreak
They poke the young men in.\forcelinebreak
The young men burn like withes.

If one run a little way,\forcelinebreak
The old men are wrath.\forcelinebreak
They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames.\forcelinebreak
Green withes burn slow\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the smoke of the young men’s torment\forcelinebreak
Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak,\forcelinebreak
And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky\dots{}

Green withes burn slow\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the old men of the world sit round the fire\forcelinebreak
And rub their hands\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But the smoke of the young men’s torment\forcelinebreak
Ascends up for ever and ever.
\end{verse}

\chapter{A Memory}



\begin{verse}
I remember\forcelinebreak
The crackle of the palm trees\forcelinebreak
Over the mooned white roofs of the town\dots{}\forcelinebreak
The shining town\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the tender fumbling of the surf\forcelinebreak
On the sulphur-yellow beaches\forcelinebreak
As we sat\dots{} a little apart\dots{} in the close-pressing night.

The moon hung above us like a golden mango,\forcelinebreak
And the moist air clung to our faces,\forcelinebreak
Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child\forcelinebreak
And we watched the out-flung sea\forcelinebreak
Rolling to the purple edge of the world,\forcelinebreak
Yet ever back upon itself\dots{}\forcelinebreak
As we\dots{}

Inadequate night\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And mooned white memory\forcelinebreak
Of a tropic sea\dots{}\forcelinebreak
How softly it comes up\forcelinebreak
Like an ungathered lily.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Edge}



\begin{verse}
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But there was time\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~staring into the abyss\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I do not know how long\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast\forcelinebreak
Like little bare-foot urchins—shaking my hands away\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But I remember\forcelinebreak
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And a wind came out of the grass,\forcelinebreak
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.

As the night grew\forcelinebreak
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth\forcelinebreak
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,\forcelinebreak
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them\dots{}\forcelinebreak
There must have been a spent moon,\forcelinebreak
For the Tall One’s veil held a shimmer of silver\dots{}

That too I remember\dots{}\forcelinebreak
And the tenderly rocking mountain\forcelinebreak
Silence\forcelinebreak
And beating stars\dots{}

Dawn\forcelinebreak
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,\forcelinebreak
And folded hills\forcelinebreak
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,\forcelinebreak
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,\forcelinebreak
Flecked with sun,\forcelinebreak
Fine as a golden pollen—\forcelinebreak
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.

I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,\forcelinebreak
And heard spiders in the leaves\forcelinebreak
And ticking of little feet,\forcelinebreak
As tiny creatures came out of their doors\forcelinebreak
To see God pouring light into his star\dots{}

\dots{} It seemed life held\forcelinebreak
No future and no past but this\dots{}

And I too got up stiffly from the earth,\forcelinebreak
And held my heart up like a cup\dots{}
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Garden}



\begin{verse}
Bountiful Givers,\forcelinebreak
I look along the years\forcelinebreak
And see the flowers you threw\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Anemones\forcelinebreak
And sprigs of gray\forcelinebreak
Sparse heather of the rocks,\forcelinebreak
Or a wild violet\forcelinebreak
Or daisy of a daisied field\dots{}\forcelinebreak
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast\forcelinebreak
To wilt in the long day\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase\forcelinebreak
And watched each petal sallowing\dots{}\forcelinebreak
I might have held them so—mechanically—\forcelinebreak
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves\forcelinebreak
And left upon my hands\forcelinebreak
A little smear of dust.

Instead\forcelinebreak
I hid them in the soft warm loam\forcelinebreak
Of a dim shadowed place\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Deep\forcelinebreak
In a still cool grotto,\forcelinebreak
Lit only by the memories of stars\forcelinebreak
And the wide and luminous eyes\forcelinebreak
Of dead poets\forcelinebreak
That love me and that I love\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Deep\dots{} deep\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Where none may see—not even ye who gave—\forcelinebreak
About my soul your garden beautiful.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Under-Song}



\begin{verse}
There is music in the strong\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Deep-throated bush,\forcelinebreak
Whisperings of song\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Heard in the leaves’ hush—\forcelinebreak
Ballads of the trees\forcelinebreak
~~~~~In tongues unknown—\forcelinebreak
A reminiscent tone\forcelinebreak
~~~~~On minor keys\dots{}

Boughs swaying to and fro\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Though no winds pass\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Faint odors in the grass\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Where no flowers grow,\forcelinebreak
And flutterings of wings\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And faint first notes,\forcelinebreak
Once babbled on the boughs\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of faded springs.

Is it music from the graves\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of all things fair\forcelinebreak
Trembling on the staves\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of spacious air—\forcelinebreak
Fluted by the winds\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Songs with no words—\forcelinebreak
Sonatas from the throats\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of master birds?

One peering through the husk\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of darkness thrown\forcelinebreak
May hear it in the dusk—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~That ancient tone,\forcelinebreak
Silvery as the light\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Of long dead stars\forcelinebreak
Yet falling through the night\forcelinebreak
~~~~~In trembling bars.
\end{verse}

\chapter{A Worn Rose}



\begin{verse}
Where to-day would a dainty buyer\forcelinebreak
Imbibe your scented juice,\forcelinebreak
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;\forcelinebreak
Drain your succulence with her lips,\forcelinebreak
Grown sapless from much use\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Make minister of her desire\forcelinebreak
A chalice cup where no bee sips—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Where no wasp wanders in?

Close to her white flesh housed an hour,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~One held you\dots{} her spent form\forcelinebreak
Drew on yours for its wasted dower—\forcelinebreak
What favour could she do you more?\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Yet, of all who drink therein,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~None know it is the warm\forcelinebreak
Odorous heart of a ravished flower\forcelinebreak
Tingles so in her mouth’s red core\dots{}
\end{verse}

\chapter{Iron Wine}



\begin{verse}
The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine,\forcelinebreak
It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies,\forcelinebreak
And purple, like the blood of elderberries.\forcelinebreak
Surely it is a strong wine—juice distilled of the fierce iron.\forcelinebreak
I am drunk of its fumes.\forcelinebreak
I feel its fiery flux\forcelinebreak
Diffusing, permeating,\forcelinebreak
Working some strange alchemy\dots{}\forcelinebreak
So that I turn aside from the goodly board,\forcelinebreak
So that I look askance upon the common cup,\forcelinebreak
And from the mouths of crucibles\forcelinebreak
Suck forth the acrid sap.
\end{verse}

\chapter{Dispossessed}



\begin{verse}
Tender and tremulous green of leaves\forcelinebreak
Turned up by the wind,\forcelinebreak
Twanging among the vines—\forcelinebreak
Wind in the grass\forcelinebreak
Blowing a clear path\forcelinebreak
For the new-stripped soul to pass\dots{}

The naked soul in the sunlight\dots{}\forcelinebreak
Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight\forcelinebreak
On the hill-side shimmering.

Dance light on the wind, little soul,\forcelinebreak
Like a thistle-down floating\forcelinebreak
Over the butterflies\forcelinebreak
And the lumbering bees\dots{}

Come away from that tree\forcelinebreak
And its shadow grey as a stone\dots{}

Bathe in the pools of light\forcelinebreak
On the hillside shimmering—\forcelinebreak
Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain—

But do not linger and look\forcelinebreak
At that bleak thing under the tree.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Star}



\begin{verse}
Last night\forcelinebreak
I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea,\forcelinebreak
Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star,\forcelinebreak
Containing both as in a trembling cup.
\end{verse}

\chapter{The Tidings}


(Easter 1916)



\begin{verse}
Censored lies that mimic truth\dots{}\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Censored truth as pale as fear\dots{}\forcelinebreak
My heart is like a rousing bell—\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And but the dead to hear\dots{}

My heart is like a mother bird,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~Circling ever higher,\forcelinebreak
And the nest-tree rimmed about\forcelinebreak
~~~~~By a forest fire\dots{}

My heart is like a lover foiled\forcelinebreak
~~~~~By a broken stair—\forcelinebreak
They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street,\forcelinebreak
~~~~~And I am not there!
\end{verse}




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The Anarchist Library



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Lola Ridge

The Ghetto and Other Poems






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Retrieved on May 23, 2012 from http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.gutenberg.org\Slash{}cache\Slash{}epub\Slash{}4332\Slash{}pg4332.txt
   
Produced by Catherine Daly\forcelinebreak  The larger part of the poem entitled “The Ghetto” appeared originally in \emph{The New Republic} and some of poems were printed in \emph{The International}, \emph{Others}, \emph{Poetry}, etc.  To the editors who first published the poems the author makes due acknowledgment.
   



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