Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/77

Rh Free thought, free speech, free acts, that make free men.

Whene'er a king is crowned, our eyes are there;

Whene'er a workman dies, our eyes are there;

Our eyes behold the crime on whole lands wrought.

Berlin and Paris unto us are one,

And one to us are Emperor and Pope,

And one to us the working-host world-wide;

Race, country, faith, law, mercy we abhor.

O angel of the Garibaldian spears,

Your song we keep; nor only from it learned

To drive the dagger in the sides of kings;

Far lower they mine whose dynamite is thought,

Whose match, the burning heart! Wake, mighty world,

The tyranny of gold is doomed, is doomed!

On lips of outcasts is the judgment framed,

As once before, that shakes futurity;

Then comes the great millennium; but now

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!" he cried, and ran.

In Victor's eyes the glory of song was dead;

And gray the smouldering spark of hope went out

That shone, their orbèd life; the Roamer wept,

But he dull-eyed sat stark; and Reginald spoke,

Of thought's stern stuff compact: "Thy holy song

Sang time's evangel pure; not unto us,