In The Street
Lord Shaftesbury
YOU have done well, we say it. You are dead,
And, of the man that with the right hand takes
Less than the left hand gives, let it be said
He has done something for our wretched sakes.
For those to whom you gave their daily bread
Rancid with God-loathed 'charity,' their drink
Putrid with man-loathed 'sin,' we bow our head
Grateful, as the great hearse goes by, and think.
Yes, you have fed the flesh and starved the soul
Of thousands of us; you have taught too well
The Rich are little gods beyond control,
Save of your big God of the heaven and hell.
We thank you. This was pretty once, and right.
Now it wears rather thin. My lord, good night!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Dai Butsu
He sits. Upon the kingly head doth rest
The round-balled wimple, and the heavy rings
Touch on the shoulders where the swallow clings;
The downward garment shows the ambiguous breast;
The Face--that Face one scarce can look on, lest
One learn the secret of unspeakable things;
But the dread gaze descends with shudderings
To the veiled couched knees, the hands and thumbs close-pressed.
O lidded downcast eyes that bear the weight
Of all our woes and terrible wrongs increase,
Proud nostrils, lips proud-perfecter than these,
With what a soul within you do you wait--
Disdain and pity, love late-born of hate,
Passion eternal, patience, pride and peace!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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To India
O INDIA, India, O my lovely land —
At whose sweet throat the greedy English Snake,
With fangs and lips that suck and never slake,
Clings, while around thee, band by stifling band,
The loathsome Shape twists, chaining foot and hand —
O from this death-swoon must thou never wake,
From limbs enfranchised these foul fetters to shake,
And, proud among the nations, to rise and stand?
Nay, but thine eyes, thine eyes, wherein there stays
The patience of that august Faith that scorns
The tinsel creed of Christ, dream still and gaze,
Where, not within the timeless east and haze,
The haunt of that wan moon with fading horns,
There breaks the first of Himalayan morns!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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The Caged Eagle
. . . I went the other day
To see the birds and beasts they keep enmewed
In the London Zoo. One of the first I saw —
One of the first I noticed, was an Eagle,
Ragged, befouled, within his iron bars
He sat without a movement or a sound,
And, when I stood and pitying looked at him,
I saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed
Out to the horizon sky. I passed from there,
And walked about the gardens hither and thither,
Till all the afternoon was spent. Returning then
To seek my home, again by chance I passed
The Eagle's cage, and stood again and looked,
And saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed
Out to the horizon sky. So I went home. . . .
The Eagle is Ireland.
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Australia
I SEE a Land of desperate droughts and floods:
I see a land where Need keeps spreading round,
And all but giants perish in the stress:
I see a Land where more, and more, and more
The demons, Earth and Wealth, grow bloat and strong.
I see a Land that lies a helpless prey
To wealthy cliques and gamblers and their slaves,
The huckster politicians: a poor Land
That less and less can make her heart-wish law.
Yea, but I see a Land where some few brave
Raise clear eyes to the struggle that must come,
Reaching firm hands to draw the doubters in,
Preaching the gospel: 'Drill and drill and drill!'
Yea, but I see a Land where best of all
The hope of Victory burns strong and bright!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Gordon's Grave
All the heat and the glow and the hush
of the summer afternoon;
the scent of the sweet-briar bush
over bowing grass-blades and broom;
the birds that flit and pass;
singing the song he knows,
the grass-hopper in the grass;
the voice of the she-oak boughs.
Ah, and the shattered column
crowned with the poet's wreath.
Who, who keeps silent and solemn
his passing place beneath?
~This was a poet that loved God's breath;
his life was a passionate quest;
he looked down deep in the wells of death,
and now he is taking his rest.~
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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To An Old Friend In England
WAS it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? —
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Drill
WHEN day's hard task's done,
Eve's scant meal partaken,
Out we steal each one,
Weariless, unshaken.
In small reeking squares,
Garbaged plots, we gather,
Little knots and pairs,
Brother, sister, father.
Then the Word is given.
In their silent places
Under lowering heaven,
Range our stern-set faces.
Now we march and wheel
In our clumsy line,
Shouldering sticks for steel,
Thoughts bitter as brine!
Drill, drill, drill, and drill!
It is only thus
Conquer yet we will
Those who've conquered us.
[...] Read more
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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In Trafalgar Square
THE stars shone faint through the smoky blue;
The church-bells were ringing;
Three girls, arms laced, were passing through,
Tramping and singing.
Their heads were bare: their short skirts swung
As they went along;
Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung
Their defiant Song.
It was not too clean, their feminine lay,
But it thrilled me quite
With its challenge to taskmaster villainous day
And infamous night,
With its threat to the robber Rich, the Proud,
The respectable Free.
And I laughed and shouted to them aloud,
And they shouted to me!
'Girls, that's the shout, the shout we shall utter
When, with rifles and spades,
We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter,
On the barricades!'
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Père-la-Chaise
(PARIS)
I STOOD in Père-la-Chaise. The putrid City,
Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay,
The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity,
Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.
Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom
Hell's wrongs unutterable had made as mad.
The rifle shots re-echoed in his tomb,
The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.
O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race —
O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that
The lust in one for power, for tinsel place,
Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat —
Is it for nothing, now and evermore,
O you whose sin in life had death in ease,
The murder of your victims beats the door
Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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