The Black Riders, and Other Lines

by Stephen Crane

I looked here;

I looked there;

Nowhere could I see my love.

And--this time--

She was in my heart.

Truly, then, I have no complaint,

For though she be fair and fairer,

She is none so fair as she

In my heart.

IX

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

One looked up, grinning,

And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

X

Should the wide world roll away,

Leaving black terror,

Limitless night,

Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand

Would be to me essential,

If thou and thy white arms were there,

And the fall to doom a long way.

XI

In a lonely place,

I encountered a sage

Who sat, all still,

Regarding a newspaper.

He accosted me:

"Sir, what is this?"

Then I saw that I was greater,

Aye, greater than this sage.

I answered him at once,

"Old, old man, it is the wisdom of the age."

The sage looked upon me with admiration.

XII

"and the sins of the fathers shall be

visited upon the heads of the children,

even unto the third and fourth

generation of them that hate me."

Well, then, I hate thee, Unrighteous Picture;

Wicked Image, I hate thee;

So, strike with thy vengeance

The heads of those little men

Who come blindly.

It will be a brave thing.

XIII