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Frank Little at Calvary
I He walked under the shadow of the Hill Where men are fed into the fires And walled apart... Unarmed and alone, He summoned his mates from the pit's mouth Where tools rested on the floors And great cranes swung Unemptied, on the iron girders. And they, who were the Lords of the Hill, Were seized with a great fear, When they heard out of the silence of wheels The answer ringing In endless reverberations Under the mountain... So they covered up their faces And crept upon him as he slept... Out of eye-holes in black cloth They looked upon him who had flung Between them and their ancient prey The frail barricade of his life... And when night--that has connived at so much-- Was heavy with the unborn day, They haled him from his bed... Who might know of that wild ride? Only the bleak Hill-- The red Hill, vigilant, Like a blood-shot eye In the black mask of night-- Dared watch them as they raced By each blind-folded street Godiva might have ridden down... But when they stopped beside the Place, I know he turned his face Wistfully to the accessory night... And when he saw--against the sky, Sagged like a silken net Under its load of stars-- The black bridge poised Like a gigantic spider motionless... I know there was a silence in his heart, As of a frozen sea, Where some half lifted arm, mid-way Wavers, and drops heavily... I know he waved to life, And that life signaled back, transcending space, To each high-powered sense, So that he missed no gesture of the wind Drawing the shut leaves close... So that he saw the light on comrades' faces Of camp fires out of sight... And the savor of meat and bread Blew in his nostrils... and the breath Of unrailed spaces Where shut wild clover smelled as sweet As a virgin in her bed. I know he looked once at America, Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe, And once at the skies whirling above him... Then all that he had spoken against And struck against and thrust against Over the frail barricade of his life Rushed between him and the stars... II Life thunders on... Over the black bridge The line of lighted cars Creeps like a monstrous serpent Spooring gold... Watchman, what of the track? Night... silence... stars... All's Well! III Light... (Breaking mists... Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold...) Light over the pit mouths, Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill... (The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.) Light... Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals... Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips... Gleaming metallic and cold In numberless slivers of steel... Light over the trestles and the iron clips Of the black bridge--poised like a gigantic spider motionless-- Sweet inquisition of light, like a child's wonder... Intrusive, innocently staring light That nothing appals... Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves, Cooing and calling All winged and avid things Waking the early flies, keen to the scent... Green-jeweled iridescent flies Unerringly steering-- Swarming over the blackened lips, The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold... Watchman, what of the Hill? Wheels turn; The laden cars Go rumbling to the mill, And Labor walks beside the mules... All's Well with the Hill!
Lola Ridge's other poems:
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