God’s curse and man’s! A thing abhorr’d
By Truth, by Justice, Reason,
Sense;
Black, soulless Murder’s vain
pretense,
Hell’s fierce defiance of the Lord,
His law and order, and His word,
And all man’s wisdom, learn’d and stor’d
Through all the ages; all atwist
From every good—the Anarchist.
Prone stretch’d and lifeless, lain in state,
One of the world’s true heroes
sleeps;
The people mourn, a nation weeps
Its ruler, kindly, wise and great;
A widow grieves, disconsolate,
While ’twixt the bars, insatiate
Glares Murder still, and cons
a list
Of victims for the Anarchist.
“When others build we but tear down;
When others weep we laugh and
jeer;
When others smile we scowl and
leer,
And meet their gladness with a frown.
All law is slavery; a knave
Is every ruler true or brave,
Or what you will, we must insist
Nothing is right.”—The Anarchist.
What if the nations heed and set
Aside some island far away,
Where all these malcontents must
stay
And rule themselves? No ban or let
To practice what they preach, and get
These things on which their hearts are set,
Among themselves. Die or exist,
They’d solve the riddle. “Anarchist.”
Calmer, Iowa.
