Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/569

 Hallucinated by the blue eyes of the vast sea-spaces, All dream of it, evoke it when the evening falls; Their raw desire to madness galls; The wind's soft kisses hover on their faces; The wave awakens rolling images of soft embraces; And their two arms implore Stretched in a frantic cry towards the shore.

And they of offices and shops, the city tribes, Merchants precise, keen reckoners, haggard scribes, Who sell their brains for hire, and tame their brows, When the keys of desks are hanging on the wall, Feel the same galling rut at even-fall, And run like hunted dogs to the carouse. Out of the depths of dusk come their dark flocks, And in their hearts debauch so rudely shocks Their ingrained greed and old accustomed care, That they are racked and ruined by despair.

It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, Time out of mind erected on the frontiers Of the city and the sea.

Come from what far sea-isles or pestilent parts? Come from what feverish or methodic marts? Their eyes are filled with bitter, cunning hate, They fight their instincts that they cannot sate; Around red females who befool them, they Herd frenzied till the dawn of sober day. The panelling is fiery with lewd art; Out of the wall nitescent knick-knacks dart; Fat Bacchuses and leaping satyrs in Wan mirrors freeze an unremitting grin