Classic Poem

Now the war-shadow falls …
America goes mad …
And our vision is broken … the Young World totters before the guns …
And what we conceived as America's birth is only the ebb-tide
Carrying the child back to the mother.

For Mother England, a race turns back,
And the young guardian of Peace,
Insane, turns toward the killing.

We cannot be silent:
We will fight the war, though the word traitor springs back at us,
And we who so loved America that we spent all in a flame of sacrifice
Will die, if it must be, breasts against the flood …

And now comes Randolph Bourne …
O Randolph, I remember you,
Misshapen hunchback, with the ear awry and the slit mouth,
But your eyes, blue and beautiful,
Your eyes, where you lived, where we saw you, straight and tall,
Spirit of our youth, star of the Young World,
Brave, lonely in the red hurricanes of hate …
And you wrote for us …
And your hate of war was a great thing which we shall not allow America to forget …
And you led us to our last stand and the downfall. . . .

I remember . . . .
I remember how the spies watched us, and the newspapers lied about us,
And she who had subsidized us became frightened and left us moneyless …
And all fell away, our Managers, Editors, all …
Till I was left alone, and in the moment of loneliness felt death approaching,
And called to our readers, and some of them, and Benny Huebsch, stood by,
But it was no use …
The day came when we sold the furniture and shut the office,
And I knew that The Seven Arts was dead,
And I cried, for I loved the dead.