“Cleared,” honorable gentlemen.
Be thankful it’s no more:
The widow’s curse is on your house, the dead
are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame, on you from North
to South
The band of every honest man flat-heeled across your
mouth.
“Less black than we were painted"?—Faith,
no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood, and that, ye know,
runs red.
It’s sticking to your fist today for all your
sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge’s well-weighed word you cannot
wipe it off.
Hold up those hands of innocence—go, scare
your sheep, together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the
old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break to find another
pen,
Tell them it’s tar that glistens so, and daub
them yours again!
“The charge is old"?—As old as Cain—as
fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments, have ye talked those
laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends
the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot—the
curse be on you all.
“Our friends believe”? Of course
they do—as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from
the quivering clay?
They—If their own front door is shut, they’ll
swear the whole world’s warm;
What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear
of harm?
The secret half a country keeps, the whisper in the
lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the
broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the
honest bees,
And shows the “bhoys” have heard your
talk—what do they know of these?
But you—you know—ay, ten times
more; the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper
bred,
The mangled stallion’s scream at night, the
tail-cropped heifer’s low.
Who set the whisper going first? You know, and
well you know!
My soul! I’d sooner lie in jail for murder
plain and straight,
Pure crime I’d done with my own hand for money,
lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those “not provens” proved
me cleared as you are cleared.
Cleared—you that “lost” the
League accounts—go, guard our honor still,
Go, help to make our country’s laws that broke
God’s laws at will—
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal “strike
again”;
The other on your dress-shirt front to show your heart
is @dane,
If black is black or white is white, in black and
white it’s down,
You’re only traitors to the Queen and but rebels
to the Crown
If print is print or words are words, the learned
Court perpends:
We are not ruled by murderers, only—by
their friends.
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser
decreed,
To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak
in their need,
He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant,
and sweat,
That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally
of bricks be set.
