I walk in a garden of roses,
'Twixt lawn and shaven lawn,
And I think of the wild free spaces,
And the rose of a breathless dawn.

Gentle and sweet beside me
Goes the wife that bears my name,
But I dream of a wild-eyed woman
And the sea that hides her shame.

For sixteen years, a merry, laughing maiden,
I have warbl'd only songs of joy;
And in this heart, so very lightly laden,
Happy thoughts have ever found employ.
But times will change! and now there comes a sorrow,
Which bids me ev'ry joy resign:

My Georgie sails for China seas tomorrow,
And he knows not yet that he is mine--
My Georgie sails for China seas tomorrow,
And he knows not yet that he is mine--

How should he know? 'twas from a dream awaking,
When they told me he and I must part;
For not until the tie was nearly breaking,

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
The setting sun, too indolent to hold
A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night's barbeque,

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds.
An orgy for some genius of the South
With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.

The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,
And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill
Their early promise of a bumper crop.

O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,
Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee
When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.

And multimarbled Genova the Proud,
Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,
I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd.

Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit
On housebacks pink, green, ochreous--where a slit
Shoreward 'twixt row and row revealed the classic blue through it.

And thereacross waved fishwives' high-hung smocks,

O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,
   Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee
When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.

   And multimarbled Genova the Proud,
   Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,
I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd.

   Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit
   On housebacks pink, green, ochreous--where a slit
Shoreward 'twixt row and row revealed the classic blue through it.

A hundred generations have gone into its making,
With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears;
Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking,
Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years.

Their victory and their laughter for this have strong men given,
For this have sweet, dead women paid in patience which survives­
That a great soul might bring the world, as from the gate of heaven,
All that was rich and beautiful in those forgotten lives.

In this noble ring to-day

Let my warning shame ye!
Listen to my solemn voice,--

Seldom does it name ye.
Many a thing have ye intended,

Many a thing have badly ended,
And now I must blame ye.

At some moment in our lives

We must all repent us!
So confess, with pious trust,

All your sins momentous!
Error's crooked pathways shunning.

Let us, on the straight road running,
Honestly content us!

Yes! we've oft, when waking, dream'd,

Let's confess it rightly;

1 Sing lullaby, as women do,
2 Wherewith they bring their babes to rest;
3 And lullaby can I sing to,
4 As womanly as can the best.
5 With lullaby they still the child,
6 And if I be not much beguil'd,
7 Full many wanton babes have I,
8 Which must be still'd with lullaby.

9 First, lullaby my youthful years,
10 It is now time to go to bed;
11 For crooked age and hoary hairs
12 Have won the haven within my head.
13 With lullaby, then, youth be still,

Vous êtes sorti sain et sauf des basses
calomnies, vous avey conquis les coeurs.

Zola, J'accuse


One was kicked in the stomach
until he vomited, then
made to put back
into his mouth what they had
brought forth; when he tried to drown
in his own stew
he was recovered. "You are
worse than a nigger or Jew,"

the helmeted one said. "You
are an intellectal.
I hate your brown
skin; it makes me sick." The tall
intense one, his penis wired,
was shocked out of

(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)

The other maidens raised their eyes to him
Who stumbled in before them when the fight
Had left him victor, with a victor's right.
I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;
He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,
And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,
Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light
As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see
And only she has hid her face away,