Chapter I: Saw Three Nuns

I saw three nuns go by the other day:
Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.

Funereal, black and chilling to behold,
The ghastly shadows of a defunct past.
The worms of ignorance and superstition
Give to these dead, the semblances of life.
The past has not yet buried all its dead.

I saw three nuns go by the other day:
Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.

A WOMAN LOVES ME

A woman loves me!
'Tis not of her I sing whose womb has been
The primal cradle of my tender self;
I mean not mother-love.

A woman loves me!
'Tis not of her I sing who also sprang
From that same source whence also I have sprung;
I mean not sister-love.

A woman loves me!
I sing of her who "from the mobs of life"
Has chosen me as him to whom alone
She will unlock her body and her soul
To welcome all my love.

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

(The Workers' Jeanne d'Arc)

She too a vision had and voices heard:
She heard the groans of slaving, starving workers:
She had a vision of their liberation.

She also mounted steed and armor donned.
The soap-box or the platform is her steed.
Her coat of mail defiance of the powers.

She too to victory an army leads.
Her army is the risen proletariat,
In arms against their pitiless exploiters.

She too is hated by the church and state.
They'd burn her at the stake if they but dared,
Condemned for witchcraft or some other crime.

She too shall live an ever-shining glory,
In human history, in human hearts--
An even brighter glory than Jeanne d'Arc.

The Maid of Orleans routed but the English,
And to a worthless king restored a throne,
To sway a sceptre o'er a land of serfs.

Lead by Elizabeth we'll rout the masters
And to the workers of the world restore
The earth itself and all its joys and riches.

Let all men rally round her blood-red banner
Which bears the motto of the revolution:
"Death to all masters! Freedom to all slaves!"

JEALOUSY

As you peruse those heavy, dusty volumes
With tense attention hour after hour,
Whilst totally indifferent to me,--
To me, who sees in you the book of books,
To whom the very cover of this book,
Your outward aspect, is more interesting
Than the contents of all books ever printed.

Is it a wonder I would like to build
A mammoth pile of all the books there are
And let the raging fire consume them all?

MISERS

I know of misers meaner than are those
Who lay awake at night to guard their treasure,
Which is in their possession only dust,
A sordid, useless heap of gilded dust
That might have given peace and bread to many.

The misers whom I mean are fair to see,
Delightful to converse with and to kiss;
They fascinate us with their wondrous eyes
As serpents fascinate the little birds.
They draw us closer to them, ever closer,
Then suddenly like serpents they coil up
And put beyond our grasp their queenly treasures,
Alas! in their possession to remain,
But useless, vain and perishable things
That might have given ecstasy to many.

SWINBURNE

Algernon Swinburne, is there not in thee
Something akin to bells that ring at sea?
In their sound so clear
There is little cheer,
When their knell I hear
I recoil with fear.
Though thy voice be clear as the day's light,
It is pregnant with mystery, death, and night.

OUR LADY OF INFINITE MERCY

I often think of a mysterious woman--
There must be somewhere a mysterious woman,
Mysterious and most marvelous of beauty,
Most beautiful,--miraculously kind,
Indeed a kindness passing understanding,
So great a kindness that it seemeth madness.
It seemeth madness, for she sallies forth
At dead of night into the dismal streets,
Into the dismal and deserted streets,
Monotously criss-crossing the city,
The monstrous, lightless, heartless, sleeping city,
Where prowling as the vermin shunning light,
Or derelicts adrift on dreary seas,
She seeks the disinherited of joy
She seeks the stunted, the disfigured children,
The starved, diseased and the discouraged children
Of stepmother society, seeks them out,
Whom everybody shuns and no one loves.
She seeks them out and gives herself to them,
This queenly woman, marvelous of beauty,
Entirely gives herself to those of whom
The thought alone makes shudder with disgust.
She gives herself even as the twilight enters
A fetid, vermin-ridden, mildewed dungeon,
A whiff of heaven in a life of hell.
Oh, have you, have you ever seen that woman,
That beautiful, that kind, mysterious woman?
She is our Lady of Infinite Mercy.
Blessed be our Lady of Infinite Mercy!

A PAGAN'S PRAYER

I sought the shrine of Eros and I prayed:--
O God omnipotent, O God supreme,
O God of love who art the God of Gods,
Behold thy worshipper upon his knees
Prostrated in the dust.
Let not my supplications rise in vain
From depths iniquitous to heights sublime.
O grant me my request, good God of love.
Unlock for me thy secret treasure house
And make me master of the arts of love.
My heart conceives great symphonies of love
That my poor body cannot execute.
I am a Beethoven, I am a Wagner,
My orchestration needs a thousand pieces,
But am restricted to a shepherd's reed.
Reveal to me the secrets of the ancients,
Instruct me in the art of love long lost;
That love of time when Gods and humans mingled.
In love I am a God, in love expression
I am alas! a frail, a weakling human.
O Eros! Eros! Eros! God of love,
Give me the power to love as Gods can love.

NIETZSCHE

A sombre silhouette
Against a sun-rise sky
In solemn solitude,
The wanderer goes by.

The shadow that he casts
Upon the plains below
Strikes terror to the hearts
Of those that do not know.

O messenger sublime
Who hailest from that land
Where joy and beauty reign;
If they could understand!...

If they could understand
The message that you bring,
They'd strew your path with palms;
Hosannahs would they sing.

Strength superceding faith,
Joy superceding fear:
The Super-Christ has come;
The Superman is near....

TO A NEGRO BELLE

You make me dream of distant tropic climes,
Luxurious vegetation; nights serene
By burning passion made tempestuous,
The witching scent of rare exotic flowers
That sooth and render sweetly languorous,
Of music soft and weird, whose savage rhythm
Compels each fibre of the frame to dance.

I see you as the princess of an isle
Whose jungles are replete with beasts of prey,
And whose vast forests ever are alive
With cries and frolickings of birds and apes;
Whose villages of bamboo huts are full
Of dusky-hued and happy naked people.

Your simple hearted subjects pay you homage;
Prostrated in the dust, they weirdly chant
Thy praises, even as in my own way,
I sing your praises, sweet, exotic princess.
Oh, let me enter your enchanted realm,
And make of me your happy, humble slave.

WALT WHITMAN

Mountain-like he towers, a Matterhorn
Midst many minor peaks;
And like a mountain, mighty, vast and wild;
A finger pointing into boundless space,
A head raised high above the shifting clouds,
A heart that beats in unison with all,
An eye that first beholds the rising sun
And is the last to see her parting glory,
A clarion-call to freedom,
A gesture of revolt,
A world-encircling brotherhood embrace,
An exaltation of the lowly,
A vindication of the truth,
A glorification of the human body,
A declaration of the right of all
To live, to love, to dare and to do,
A hymn to life, a rhapsody of joy!

LIFE-LUST

My mouth--the mouth of my whole being waters
For all the fruit upon the lap of Life;
The luscious fruit of Life, (delicious fruit,
All running over with the juice of joy.)

Life seems a banquet and my gourmand senses
Would gorge themselves with all good things thereof.
My taste, my touch, my smell, my sight, my hearing
Would drink the seasoned vintages of Life,
And relish all Life's rarest fruits and viands.

Content to go whene'er the feast is over
Content, the feast was not prepared in vain.

ON A TALK OF SPINOZA

Durant spoke of Spinoza yesterday
And I sat list'ning, feeling, meditating.
And now and ever afterwards will feel
And live and think more deeply than before,
For having heard Durant speak of Spinoza.

Spinoza! what a mighty, mighty name!
All Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons--
Mere specks of dust upon a polished lense,
Compared to that poor polisher of lenses.

He polished lenses for myopic eyes,
The world's myopic eyes hath need of them--
And long will need them,--poor myopic world.
My own sight seems improved since I have heard
Durant speak of Spinoza yesterday.

THE REVOLT OF THE RAGGED

We who have but rags to wear,
Let us go out on strike
And face the robber-master class
In all our naked might.

Do they not hold that man is made
In the image of his God?
So we refuse to desecrate
The image of their God.

No longer will we soil our limbs,
These beautiful, these wondrous limbs
With filthy, fetid rags.

Where is the beast so wild,
The reptile or the worm so base in kind,
Would not disdain the rags "creation's kings"
Disgrace their bodies with?

Oh be not shocked at our forced nakedness,
Ye masters who refuse to clothe your slaves.
Do you not steal the wool that we have shorn,
The cloth we weave, the garments that we made?
You stole our clothes, behold us naked now.

Let us arise and from our bodies tear
The fetid uniform that brands us slaves.
In countless masses let us rally forth
And through each pore of our free body shout
Our right to life, to liberty, and joy.

I'VE SEEN A PRINCESS

I've read of princesses in fairy tales
And I have sometimes dreamed of princesses
But not until to-day have I beheld,
Beheld or ever spoken to a princess.
Yes, I have seen and spoken to a princess
In body and in mind; in thought and gesture,
Indeed, in every way a perfect princess.

Since I am not some mighty potentate
In whom it would not seem as sheer presumption
To lay his heart and domains at her feet,
Would I at least could be a humble page
Forever in attendance on his princess,
To serve her and to worship her in silence,
And be allowed as wages for his hire
To breathe within the shadow of her charms.

But though my princess be reality,
My hopes, my aspirations, my desires,
Alas, are dreams, mere dreams, alas, mere dreams.

THE GREAT DISCARD

I see a mighty junk-heap rising high,
Old bibles, crosses, crescents, six-point stars
And other symbols, idol's fetiches--
The bloody tools of greed and superstition,
That have tormented man for centuries,
Disfiguring his body and his mind.
I see the flags of all the various nations,
In whose defense men slaughtered one another
Upon this junk-heap also; and the books
Wherein the laws are writ, that give to man
The power over man;
And all the institutions that have helped
To make of man an abject slave or tyrant,
These, too, are on this junk-heap.

THE SCULPTOR'S RHAPSODY

I am a God!
I am drunk with the joy of creating.
At my touch form comes out of chaos.
With a handful of clay I build monuments,
Vaster than the pyramids,
More mysterious than the Sphinx,
As startling as the Colossus of Rhodes.
My statues are austere as ancient cathedrals,
Their silhouette effaces the sky,
Their shadows engulf entire cities.
I am a God!
I am drunk with the joy of creating.

ATAVISM

O, have you ever heard the gutter's call?
E'er felt the strange attraction of the sewer?
Or ceded to the urge from underneath,
To wallow in the mire, to plunge, to sink
Into the frightful abyss of perdition?
Were you e'er tempted from some siren's lips,
To cull the bliss, you know, is venomous?
Or did you feel the satanic desire,
To soil and mutilate the sacred image
Of that ideal you worshiped all your life?
It is the atavistic voice that's waking,
The dormant beast in you. Beware! Beware!

TO ONE WHO COULD NOT LOVE