How shall we know them when we see them?
How shall we know them now they’ve come?
Not by their rags and not by their tags,
Nor by any distinctive gown;
The same unremarkable Sunday suit
And hats cocked up and down.
Yet there they are, youths, loutishly
Strolling in gangs and staring along the Corso
With the gang-stare
And a half-threatening envy
At every forestière,
Every lordly tuppenny foreigner from the hotels, fattening on the exchange.
Hark! Hark!
The dogs do bark!
It’s the socialists in the town.
Sans rags, sans tags,
Sans beards, sans bags,
Sans any distinction at all except loutish commonness.
How do we know then, that they are they?
Bolshevists.
Leninists.
Communists.
Socialists.
-Ists!-Ists!
Alas, salvia and hibiscus flowers.
Salvia and hibiscus flowers.
Listen again.
Salvia and hibiscus flowers.
Is it not so?
Salvia and hibiscus flowers.
Hark! Hark!
The dogs do bark!
Salvia and hibiscus flowers.
Who smeared their doors with blood?
Who on their breasts
Put salvias and hibiscus?