Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/84

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Accursed is labor for another, without justice.

Contemptible is the labor of a slave.

Blessed is leisure, the miraculous gateway.

The ponderous machines should have unlocked the gates

of the miraculous gardens, but they are ogres before

the gates. You cannot gather figs from thistles, Yet you blindly hope, against the voice of the centuries. For good out of the ancient evil conditions. Can you gather blossoms of the soul From the tree, Poverty? The ancient degradations will remain While the ancient conditions are unchanged. Revolution is your only doctor.

POET: Nature works not the revolution of her seasons with

violence. Patiently the buds peep and the seasons steal away.

TRUTH: Yet Winter spares not the outworn tree, Nor stays her tempest lest the rotten fall. Ever the new roots upon the old. The vines throw the graceful garland of their youth About the dying ; the old is forgotten. Has it not ever been sacred that a few should die. That all may live?

You are willing to die for your rulers. Are you not willing to die for your own souls? Blood is a rich fertilizer; It will make lilies bloom amid stones, even in the streets

of the city. Rebellion is a holy thing. Conceived by the God in Man.

POET: Freedom is a blood-kissed angel.

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