Chapter I: W. W. Prison Song

(Tune: "The Red Flag")

The pale and dismal daylight falls
Through iron bars on prison walls.
In chains we came from far and near,
And in dark cells they hold us here.

CHORUS

Defiant 'neath the Iron Heel;
Their walls of stone and bars of steel!
For though all hell at us is hurled,
We and our kind shall rule the world!

At us the blood-hounds are let loose,
The lynch-mobs with the knotted noose;
In legal sanctioned mask and gown
The New Black Hundreds hunt us down.

To all brave comrades o'er the sea,
In chains for human liberty,
And all jailed rebels everywhere
We say: be bold to do and dare!

By all the graves of Labor's dead,
By Labor's deathless flag of red,
We make a solemn vow to you,--
We'll keep the faith; we will be true.

For Freedom laughs at prison bars
Her voice re-echoes from the stars;
Proclaiming with the tempest's breath
A Cause beyond the reach of death!

TO FRANCE

(May Day, 1919)

Mother of revolutions, stern and sweet,
Thou of the red Commune's heroic days;
Unsheathe thy sword, let thy pent lightning blaze
Until these new bastiles fall at thy feet.
Once more thy sons march down the ancient street
Led by pale men from silent Pere la Chaise;
Once more La Carmignole--La Marseillaise
Blend with the war drum's quick and angry beat.

Ah, France--our--France--must they again endure
The crown of thorns upon the cross of death?
Is morning here . . .? Then speak that we may know!
The sky seems lighter but we are not sure.
Is morning here . . .? The whole world holds its breath
To hear the crimson Gallic rooster crow!

VILLANELLE

(Torquato Tasso from his cell at Ste. Anne, 1548)

Her beauty haunts me everywhere--
A lone lark singing as it flies--
Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.

Amber and gold meet in her hair,
Dark pools and starlight in her eyes;
Her beauty haunts me everywhere.

Slim body, petal soft and fair,
Cool lips, cool, cool as evening skies--
Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.

Pale fingers delicate and rare,
To lull and lure caressing-wise;
Her beauty haunts me everywhere.

Here in my dungeon dim and bare
The last frail not of music dies--
Sweet, O sweet beyond compare.

My heart? I steeled it not to care. . . .
But God! her love is paradise!
Her beauty haunts me everywhere,
O sweet, sweet, sweet beyond compare!

WESLEY EVEREST

(Mutilated and murdered at Centralia, Washington, November 11th, 1919, by a mob of "respectable" businessmen.)

Torn and defiant as a wind-lashed reed,
Wounded he faced you as he stood at bay;
You dared not lynch him in the light of day,
But on your dungeon stones you let him bleed;
Night came . . . and you black vigilants of Greed . . .
Like human wolves, seized hard upon your prey,
Tortured and killed . . . and, silent slunk away
Without one qualm of horror at the deed.

Once . . . long ago . . . do you remember how
You hailed Him king for soldiers to deride--
You placed a scroll above His bleeding brow
And spat upon Him, scourged Him, crucified . . .?

A rebel unto Caesar--then as now
Alone, thorn-crowned, a spear wound in his side!

THE INDUSTRIAL HERETICS

They say we are revolters--that we stirred
The workers of all nations to rebel--
And that we would not compromise with Hell,
But damned it with our every deed and word.
They feared us as we faced them undeterred,
And gave us each a coffin of a cell
In this steel cave where living corpses dwell--
Hate-throttled here that we might not be heard.

We are those fools too stubborn-willed to bend
Our necks to Wrong and parley and discuss.
Today we face the awful test of fire--
The prison, gallows, cross--but in the end
Your sons will call your children after us
And name their dogs from men you now admire!

BLOOD AND WINE

(A certain little renegade of the Revolution chants a hymn of praise to his erstwhile enemy.)

Behold! The helots of the land
Are cowed beneath thy iron fist;
They are too dumb to understand--
Too tame and spineless to resist.

Victorious one! Against thy gains
These chattels cannot, dare not rise;
Stifle the thought within their brains
And rule . . . with bayonets and lies.

So may thy sons, with greed uncurbed,
Their children's children rule again;
Aye, rule with iron, undisturbed,
The all-prolific sons of men.

What matters that ten million died
To give thy lust a dwelling place?
Does not thy Terror set aside
The ancient freedom of the race?

What matters that the peasant's plow
Bites at a soil baptised with red?
Are not thy bloody dollars now
More myriad than the myriad dead?

That in charred cities, wan with pain,
War-desolated mothers live,
While lips of babies tug in vain
At breasts that have no milk to give?

Or that beneath thy battered walls,
Cursed with the eloquence of hell,
Black Want to red Rebellion calls . . .?
Heed not, I tell thee all is well!

Heed not! Have vine-clad maidens sing
And serve thee scented wine and gore;
Laugh! Glut thyself to vomiting,
And hiccough, screaming still for more.

What of the Men against the gate,
Black-massed and sullen, gaunt and lean . . .
Like thee they crave one thing to hate.
Be glad . . . and whet thy guillotine!

THE RED GUARD

Sons of the dawn! No more shall you enslave
Nor lull them with your honied lies to sleep,
Nor lead them on like herds of human sheep,
To hopeless slaughter for the loot you crave.
For now upon you, wave on mighty wave,
The iron-stern battalions rise and leap
To extirpate your breed and bury deep
And sow with salt the unlamented grave!

Accursed Monster -- nightmare of the years--
Pause but a moment ere you pass away!
Pause and behold the earth made clean and pure--
Our earth, that you have drenched with blood and tears--
Then greet the crimson usurer of Day,--
The mighty Proletarian Dictature!

THE RED FEAST

Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife
And spill each others guts upon the field;
Serve unto death the men you served in life
So that their wide dominions may not yield.

Stand by the flag--the lie that still allures;
Lay down your lives for land you do not own,
And give unto a war that is not yours
Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone.

But whether it be yours to fall or kill
You must not pause to question why nor where.
You see the tiny crosses on that hill?
It took all those to make one millionaire.

It was for him the seas of blood were shed,
That fields were razed and cities lit the sky;
And now he comes to chortle o'er the dead--
The condor Thing for whom the millions die!

The bugle screams, the cannons cease to roar.
"Enough! enough! God give us peace again."
The rats, the maggots and the Lords of War
Are fat to bursting from their meal of men.

So stagger back, you stupid dupes who've "won,"
Back to your stricken towns to toil anew,
For there your dismal tasks are still undone
And grim Starvation gropes again for you.

What matters now your flag, your race, the skill
Of scattered legions--what has been the gain?
Once more beneath the lash you must distil
Your lives to glut a glory wrought of pain.

In peace they starve you to your loathsome toil,
In war they drive you to the teeth of Death;
And when your life-blood soaks into their soil
They give you lies to choke your dying breath.

So will they smite your blind eyes till you see,
And lash your naked backs until you know
That wasted blood can never set you free
From fettered thraldom to the Common Foe.

Then you will find that "nation" is a name
And boundaries are things that don't exist;
That Labor's bondage, worldwide, is the same,
And ONE the enemy it must resist.

Montreal, 1914.

THE GIRLS WHO SANG FOR US

What does it mean to us that Spring is here?
We asked ourselves within the great grey hall.
We shall not feel the magic of her call;
This day, like others, will be dull and drear.
And then you sang . . . and brought so very near,
The fragrant world beyond the prison wall,
The tender fields, the trees and grass, and all
The hopes and dreams that every man holds dear.

O, silvery voices, sweet with life and youth
Brushing our grey lives with your rainbow wings--
Lives that were stern and bitter with old wrong,
And cleansing them with beauty and with truth;
Reviving memories of vanished springs--
Making us whole with miracles of song!

TO EDITH

Do you remember how we walked that night
In early spring?
And how we found a new and sweet delight
In everything?
Do you remember how the air was filled
With mist and moonlight--how our hearts were thrilled--
And seemed to sing?

What if these walls shut out the world for me
And heaven too,
There still lives fragrant in my memory
The thought of you.
And out there now with life's high dome above you
If you but knew how very much I love you--
If you but knew . . . .

SONG OF SEPARATION

Two that I love must live alone,
Far away.
All in the world I can call my own,
Only they.
Mother and boy in the rocking chair,
Thinking of one who cannot be there,
Breathing a hope that is half a prayer;
Night and day, night and day.

Here in my cell I must sit alone,
Clothed in grey.
Bars of iron and walls of stone
Bid me stay.
What of the world with its pomp and show?
Baubles of nothing! This I know:
Deep in my heart I miss them so
Night and day, night and day.

TO MY LITTLE SON

I cannot lose the thought of you
It haunts me like a little song,
It blends with all I see or do
Each day, the whole day long.

The train, the lights, the engine's throb,
And that one stinging memory:
Your brave smile broken with a sob,
Your face pressed close to me.

Lips trembling far too much to speak;
The arms that would not come undone;
The kiss so salty on your cheek;
The long, long trip begun.

I could not miss you more it seemed,
But now I don't know what to say.
It's harder than I ever dreamed
With you so far away.

ESCAPED!

(The boiler house whistle is blown "wildcat" when a prisoner makes a "getaway")

A man has fled. . . .! We clutch the bars and wait;
The corridors are empty, tense and still;
A silver mist has dimmed the distant hill;
The guards have gathered at the prison gate.
Then suddenly the "wildcat" blares its hate
Like some mad Moloch screaming for the kill,
Shattering the air with terror loud and shrill,
The dim, grey walls become articulate.

Freedom, you say? Behold her altar here!
In those far cities men can only find
A vaster prison and a redder hell,
O'ershadowed by new wings of greater fear.
Brave fool, for such a world to leave behind
The iron sanctuary of a cell!

RETROSPECT

The wall-girt distance undulates with heat;
The buildings crouch in terror of the sun;
Steel bars and stones, heat-tortured ton on ton,
On which the noon's remorseless hammers beat.
Alone I trudge the wide red-cobbled street:
How long before this evil dream is done . . .?
These strange mad stones I know them every one,
Worn with the tread of oh, how many feet!

And yet it seems that I have seen it all
Before . . . I know not when . . . but there should be
Blunt buildings near a cliff, as I recall;
Bare rocks--a burning white--a gnarled dark tree . . .
And looming clear above a sentried wall
The foam-laced splendor of a warm blue sea . . .