This is Giovannitti’s picture of the Republic, after it had been gained with blood and sacrifice:
When night with velvet-sandaled feet
Stole in her chamber’s solitude,
Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,
A drunken harlot of the street,
With withered breasts and shaggy hair
Soiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,
Between a sergeant of police
And a decrepit millionaire.
Love poems also figure in the book, but the dominant note is that of conflict. Giovannitti has realized the pregnant fact that in struggle is the greatest joy, that the ecstasy of growth and striving is worth more that the bovine placidity of “happiness.” At the end of his love-song, The Praise of Spring, he says: