O bitter is the challenge that he flings
At bars and bolts and keys.
Torn with the cries of vanished centuries
And curses hurled at long-forgotten kings
Beyond dim seas.
The wind alone, of all the gods of old,
Men could not chain.
O wild wind, brother to my wrath and pain,
Like you, within a restless heart I hold
A hurricane.
The wind has known the dungeons of the past
Knows all that are;
And in due time will strew their dust afar,
And singing, he will shout their doom at last
To a laughing star.
O cleansing warrior wind, stronger than death,
Wiser than men may know;
O smite these stubborn walls and lay them low,
Uproot and rend them with your mighty breath—
Blow, wild wind, blow!
TO FREEDOM
Out on the "lookout" in the wind and sleet,
Out in the woods of fir and spruce and pine,
Down in the hot slopes of the dripping mine
We dreamed of you and Oh, the dream was sweet!
And now you bless the felon food we eat
And make each iron cell a sacred shrine;
For when your love thrills in the blood like wine,
The very stones grow holy to our feet.
We shall be faithful though we march with Death
And singing storm the barricades of Wrong,
For life is such a little thing to give.
We shall fight on as long as we have breath—
Love in our hearts and on our lips a song—
Without you it were better not to live!
THE VISION MAKER
To EUGENE VICTOR DEBS
Christ-like he spoke. While angry cannon roared,
His vision tinged the torn and bleeding skies,
Men heard in him their own dumb anguished cries,
The heavens seemed to open at his word.
Give us a victim, shouted Caesar's horde,
From his black pyre red warnings shall arise,
The vision perishes, the prophet dies. . .
His truth is far more deadly than our sword!