Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/44

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When I hear the soughing of the winter wind in the

leafless trees, It is the voices of little children without childhood; The sobbing of the brooks which quarrel to their stones Is to me the sobbing of mothers who curse motherhood ; The hissing of the imperious ocean Is to me the savagery of men who hate manhood. And the roar of the tempest is the fury of those Who will some day shake their fists against God.

TRUTH: Bellied God! Moloch insatiable.

POET: Everywhere, thicker than the stars of Heaven, I see melancholy eyes which stare at me ; Everywhere, like hissing rain, I hear the hot, salt rain of women's tears Which make the earth more salt and barren than this

desert. Nature's desert is clean, and the bones of the dead Shine in the sun, white as pearls; But the desert of Man is filled with dead men's bones Rotting in darkness.

TRUTH: Revolution ! Revolution !

POET: Everywhere I hear the hesitating footsteps of the wind Which brings unto my ears the moans of the Poor. More melancholy than the wail of the curlew upon the

waste Is the cry of the disinherited : Those who were disinherited before they were bom.

TRUTH: Before the day of their birth They are outcasts in the home of their Mother.

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