Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/47

Rh The dead are below, and the landless, and those who live to labor And grind forever in gloom that the privileged few may live.

But the silence is sullen, not restful. It heaves like a sea, and frets, And beats at the roof till it finds another vent for its fury. Again the valve is burst and the pitch-cloud rushes,—the old seam rends anew— Where the kings were killed before, their names are hewed from the granite— Paris, mad hope of the slave-shops, flames to the petroleuse! Tiger that tasted blood—Paris that tasted freedom! Never, while steel is cheap and sharp, shall thy kinglings sleep without dreaming Never, while souls have flame, shall their palaces crush the hovels.