Classic Poem

A red-headed woodpecker sounds his roll-call
Against an old apple tree,
Drumming Pan and his little goat-mouthed satyrs
From the shadowy forest to the orchard;
And the melancholy note of the cuckoo,
Hid in an oak-tree, calls plaintively
The coming of rain.
From rocky hillside mourns the cooing of doves.
High against the sky, with iron bill
Rattling, deafening, reverberant,
I hear an iron woodpecker
Pecking the steel bolts of girders.
And I see men running about on girders and beams,
Human spiders, weaving an iron cobweb;
Running about recklessly, as if the air were their home.
A sudden slip, a swift rush to Eternity.
A spider of the iron web lies still upon the pavement.
A coat blots out the sight.

Nothing is ever blotted.
Even the grass-roots remember
When they have fed on blood.
Justice, relentless, clear-visioned, will carefully insist
Red drop for drop, that the debt be paid.