Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/285

 Yet behind all, lowering, stealing—lo, a Shape, Vague as the night, draped interminable, head, front, and form, in scarlet folds, Whose face and eyes none may see, Out of its robes only this—the red robes, lifted by the arm, One finger, crook'd, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.

Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves—bloody corpses of young men; The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud, And all these things bear fruits—and they are good.

Those corpses of young men, Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets—those hearts pierc'd by the gray lead, Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughter'd vitality.

They live in other young men, O kings! They live in brothers again ready to defy you! They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.

Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom, but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed, Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.