Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/67



Crippled and distorted bodies ; Crippled and distorted souls.

TRUTH:

Harvest from the planting of that Insolence, the State,

Which is a vessel of injustice from which is poured privilege, monopoly, laws.

Who gave the Many the right to prohibit self-hood to one

More than that one shall prohibit self-hood to many?

You perceive the wickedness of one grinding many,

But you perceive not the wickedness of many controlling one.

You are glad that the son of a laborer

May become a money king.

And you know not that this is the very evil.

You smell a poisoned flower.

You call the burglars, highwaymen and pickpockets law- breakers.

And you know not it is the lawmakers who are highway- men and pickpockets.

Nature has set the earth open and bountiful

And has put hunger for joy into men's hearts.

And thirst for soul-breeding leisure ;

But the lawmakers have robbed their brethren and forcibly taken toll at the gates.

POET:

Shall I pity the debased ones

And not pity those who have wrought the debasement?

Shall I curse those who have robbed their brethren

And not curse myself?

Shall I pity the joy-denied ones, and pass on?

Shall I forgive the criminals, haughtily, and go my way?

What trick of the great wheel, invisible,

Gave to them their places, and to me mine?

What smallest accident, within the cloudy tangle of the

Past Might have shifted our places?

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