I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I brood upon my hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.
My being would be a skeleton a shell,
If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,
And makes my heaven in the white world's hell,
Did not forever feed me vital blood.
I see the mighty city through a mist—
The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,
The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,
The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,
Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
A chafing savage down the decent street,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh I must keep my heart inviolate,
Against the poison of your deadly hate!
AMERICA
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
The Liberator was gaining strength in its stride. We were always receiving praiseful letters and faithful promises of support. And we were preparing to celebrate our struggling through to a happy New Year. But suddenly the magazine was knocked off its feet. Our bookkeeper, Mylius, disappeared, and with him went the four thousand dollars left from The Liberator's government bonds. Unfortunately Mylius had been intrusted with the key to the bank's vault in which they were kept. I always felt that I could have trusted my friend, Michael, the gangster, with my life, while I wouldn't have trusted Mylius with my shadow.
Max Eastman was discouraged. Always worried about the raising of money to run the magazine, he had never had the necessary leisure for his own creative writing. Most of the money he raised came from liberal rentiers. And now that the magazine editorially had taken a stand for Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolshevik revolution, it was less easy to obtain money from these rentiers, whose class had been ruthlessly expropriated in Russia.
Max Eastman wanted to relinquish the editorship and go abroad to live and write as he desired. We called a meeting of Liberator artists and writers and sympathizers. All of us wanted to carry on with the magazine. But money mocked at us. None of us had Eastman's combination of talents for the money-raising job. That had been no picnic for him, either, in spite of his fine platform personality and attractive presence.
The only person at that meeting who felt that The Liberator could carry on without Max Eastman was Michael Gold. Gold was always critical about the way in which the magazine was run. He thought that Eastman was too much of an esthete, too Baudelaire-like in his poetic expression. He maintained that The Liberator should express more of the punch and the raw stuff of life and labor. Max Eastman had made up his mind to get out from under. We decided that all the collaborators should endeavor to keep the magazine going as a collective enterprise. And upon Eastman's suggestion, Michael Gold and myself were appointed executive editors. There could have been no worse combination, because personally and intellectually and from the first time we met, Michael Gold and I were opposed to each other.