Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/43

 John Reed's Body

By MICHAEL GOLD.

John Reed, died in Moscow, October, 17, 1920.

John Reed, our captain, his body fills a grave.

The lion-heart is patient, the warrierwarrior [sic] is bones.

The grass is his brother, and his pulse once so brave,

Now beats but as faintly as atoms beat in stones.

Death is for dreaming, but now the world's in flame,

And we are living men, and hope is everywhere,

The strong unhappy poor, in Communism's name,

Are writing cannon-poems, that batter down despair.

So dream not, but chant the scarlet songs of Life,

Fight, sing and hope, for we are living men,

Raise John Reed's banner in the thickest of the strife

Ere we lie down to dream with him again.