Covington Hall

“ Don't turn aside to catch the light that showers from life's wings,
Lest you forget the ledger is the holiest of things.
Don't listen to the fairies, Son,—don't be a fool and quit
The sacred House of Dollars, just at Music's feet to sit;
Don't heed them when they whisper "love" and "hope" and "faith" and "trust,"—
For all except the cashbox is as ashes and as dust. ”

“ Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright!
Through ages upon ages, they have cursed him day on day,
But fearless and unconquered he has held them all at bay;
Forever and forever he has faced them in the fight—
Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright!
Hail to the first of rebels! To the chieftain, strong and brave,
Who sounded first the bugle-call of freedom to the slave!
Who never yet has faltered through time's long and dreary flight—
Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright! ”

“ I only know that dreamings the to us seem all sublime,
The soul of mortal music, and the heart of earthly rhyme,
Our farthest sweep of wisdom, all our thought's divinest light,
To Love is as a lantern in the fog-clouds of the night. ”

“ A strange, unearthly beauty palpitated through the air,
But loveliness was loveliest where you were lying there.
Around your queenly presence the departed soul still clung.
It seemed that death had come as comes a song by angels sung,
Had stolen on you unawares, as night steals on the day,
And fixed in every feature, dear, the life it took away. ”

“ A sadness and a longing tries my inmost soul to-night;
An undefinable sorrow; a shadow on the light;
A restless, weary searching for a passage through the bars,
Out of this gilded prison to the free, eternal stars.
A sadness and a longing that is not of earthly things,
But a heartache for the silence and the long lost angel wings ”

“ The sunshine and the shadow lengthen with the dying day,
And, like a dream, the daylight vanishes from earth away.
The western sky is covered with a web of beauty spun
By fairy hands, and woven from the life-tide of the sun. ”

“ O the days that long have vanished! O the light that died away,
When the mystic lovelight faded from her dreamy eyes for aye!
O the fading of the roses! O the ages that have flown,
And the sorrow and the shadow that the dreamer's heart has known! ”

“ And winter envelops the gardens of June.
The rythm of nature is ever at fault,
And irksome the blue of the star-studded vault;
Oppressed and oppressor,—the soul is the twain,
A wanderer searching for Eden in vain. ”

“ Ruby-crowned and splendid—rubies of a baby's life-blood made,
Richer than the gems of nature, of a stranger, deeper shade,
On their snow-white bosoms quivered as the dames of fashion prayed.
Then I went into the dungeons where the brute men cringe and crawl—
Men to every high thought blinded—men no longer men at all—
And my eyes looked upward to the men whom we "successful" call,
And the sign was in their foreheads and their thrones about to fall. ”

“ Ever close and near to thee;
Oversoul and heart of things,
Shade me always with thy wings;
Even in the vale of death,
Breathe on me thy honeyed breath.
Mother Nature, guard me when
Life is strong, and after then ”

“ The conscience of the workers—O my masters! nevermore
Will we cringe and plead for mercy at your gold-stained temple door!
We shall come in all the glory of the human soul awake,
We shall reach our strong hands forward and our birthright we shall TAKE!
The conscience of the workers—O my masters, heed you this:
We, the workers, were awakened from the dead by Freedom's kiss ”

“ He was no traitor to his God,
No traitor to his native sod;
Upon his soul there is no stain,
And death like his is not in vain,
Ireland, O Ireland!
He is not dead—death is a dream—
There is no death for souls supreme! ”

“ I am weary, O my brothers, of the long march down the night;
I am weary though the goal for which we battled is in sight;
I am weary, O my brothers, and I long to turn aside
To rest me in the gardens where the olden dreams abide.
I am weary, O my brothers, of the hard and glaring street,
Where the promise of the spirit is forever incomplete ”

“ Across the sea of sadness
On the lands of other days?
To stand out in the dark
Alone upon the mountains
Where the wolves of failure bark?
To see the light of love
Fade slowly from the world around
And vanish from above? ”

“ FAITHLESS
They tell me you are faithless; that you love me now no more;
That love's lodestar shines no longer on the dreamer's temple door;
That my heart misread in reading the illuming of your eye ”

“ Like the stars that o'er us beam,
Your pure spirit ruled supreme
O'er life's every work and dream,
Little girl.
You were of those higher spheres
That the dreamer sees through tears
When the genius of love appears,
Little girl. ”

“ Glow thru the beautiful night on the beautiful gardens of love,
Till the world is a beautiful vision, the dream of the dreamers come true,
And the light of the beautiful gardens is the beautiful spirit of you. ”

“ The church spreads like a upas over heart and soul and mind,
Grows powerful and fattens as the race grows stooped and blind;
Forever and forever it is siding with the kings,
Is at the throat of Labor and is breaking Freedom's wings. ”

“ You who know no other kingdom save this sorrow-stricken earth,
Where you wander in the barrens 'neath the curse of mortal birth!
Lo! how dare you call me crazy? You who live down in the plain,
Far beneath the dazzling empire of the man you call insane! ”

“ Kiss me once again, my darling, though my soul forever dies
With the dying of the love-light from your clear and splendid eyes;
Lift your lips to mine and kiss me, though the kiss leave desolate
Every palace I have builded in the dreamland of my fate. ”

“ And for your full forgiveness, dear, I plead.
The days are long without you, dear; so long
The hours between the dark and dawn! The song
You sang has melted to an undertone,
And shadows linger where the sunlight shone;
And darkness hastens, dear, to blight
The world you made so beautiful and bright. ”

“ It fired the souls of workingmen.
'Tis that which stirs the race today—
'Tis that which makes truth's lightnings play—
'Tis Revolution in its birth—
The soul of Freedom—the light of earth—
REBELLION! ”

“ Her dark hair sweeping backward showed a forehead broad and white;
And a passion born of heaven gave her eyes undying light.
'Round her white soul lingered all the virtues, honor, love and truth,
All the stainlessness of woman in the loveliness of youth. ”

“ I only know the message that my soul sent out to sea
Will never cross the silence and come back again to me;
That all the dreams and visions that my soul has dreamed of you
Will fade and die like roses when they miss the sun and dew. ”

“ Met the icy kiss of death,
Isabel;
And the world will never view
One more gentle or more true,
Fairer, lovelier than you,
Isabel.
In this narrow coffin lies
All there is of earth and skies,
Isabel ”

“ In the midst of plenty, hungered—on the watersheds, athirst—
In the halls of pleasure, wearied—by their very beauty curst.
Sons of Life and Power striving Death and Weakness to evict,
Battling with the portless oceans on a crewless derelict ”

“ Into the strain
The world-free spirit heard.
I would go out there, and gaze
Through the haze
That comes drifting o'er the skies
When the sunshine dies,
And watch night
Kiss to sleep the tired eyes of light. ”

“ To soothe the aching brain.
The song that seemed to softly float,
From soul-lands far above,
When mother played the prelude
To the deathless hymn of love.
Some olden, golden, lovelit song,
Forever fresh and young ”

“ But the workers gathered 'round you, and the Revolution spread,
And the priesthood and the masters for a moment were afraid.
Down the high-road of the ages marched your resurrected soul,
And the pagan powers trembled as their strong hands lost control ”

“ Or else it moves, supreme, sublime,
Triumphant over fate and time.
Soul of my soul, or dark, or clear,
Or close, or far, love keep you, dear;
Whatever stars above us shine,
Love watch between your soul and mine. . ”

“ A LITTLE SOLILOQUY
We come into this little world,
And we live our little day;
And we speak our little prologue,
And we act our little play.
And we blow our little trumpets,
Give our little horns a toot ”

“ Death! Death! Death or Liberty!
We, the miracle performers, working wonders with our toil,
We are strangers in our countries, we are aliens on their soil;
We are beggars, tramps and vagrants, and we live and die a slave,
Tho' the treasuries are bursting with the wealth our labor gave! ”

“ He swept like lightning from above,
An eagle on a helpless dove;
And, as his talons clutched you 'round,
You fluttered, dove-like, to the ground;
More beautiful in your despair
Than anything in earth or air. ”

“ And the songs of happy mothers shall be heard throughout the earth;
There shall be no fallen women, there shall be no broken men,
There shall be no homeless outcasts on the broad earth's bosom then. ”

“ You whose souls have never anguished at the death watch of the poor!
You who rape the starving millions and yet grasp for more and more,
Raimenting in rags our mother, raimenting in silks your whore? ”

“ We shall hunt around the fences where your ox-men sweat and gape
Till they stampede down your stockades in their panic to escape;
We shall steal up thru the darkness, we shall prowl the wood and town,
Till they waken to their power and arise and ride you down. ”

“ IN GOD WE TRUST
In God we trust—the God of Gold,
The fiend Jehovah, hard and cold;
The merciless, supreme Unjust—
The God of Slaves—in Him we trust.
In God we trust—the God of Greed,
The Sower of the Poisoned Seed ”

“ Ans'ring the cry and the call of the wild,—
I want my Woman before I die,
I want my Woman before I die!
I want my Woman before I die,
Her they stole from my arms with their Christian lie,—
I want my Woman before I die! ”

“ I don't want to see him crushed, his children made the prey
Of every wolf that howls along the Anglo-Saxon way;
Of every low-browed, heartless thing that bays him with the scream:
"I am the Anglo-Saxon and I am the white supreme!" ”

“ The water in the cottage pail
Is sweeter than the rarest ale.
"There is no wine, however old,
Can warm the loveless of their cold;
There is no power, here nor there,
Can make unloving beings fair. ”

“ The Godhead will behold.
But you—why, you're nothing old boy,
You're nothing but a dog;
And when you die they'll haul you out
And throw you in the bog.
I'm only telling you, old boy,
What wise men say is true ”

“ The strike tears off the mask of things,
To mass and class the issue brings.
Say what ye will, the strike is good:
It clears things long misunderstood:
It jolts the social mind awake:
It forces men a stand to take. ”

“ Knelt the mother of a convict keeping watch upon his wo;
Guarding, with that other Mary, in the brute mob all alone,
Fearlessly beside the dying, at the great Blasphemer's throne.
Brokenheartedly she murmured o'er and o'er the words of love,
Reaching thru the tragic darkness to the stricken form above ”

“ Drink, brothers, drink!
Drink, brothers, drink!
Let us cease to grieve and sigh;
Let us keep oblivion by
For the tear and for the sigh;
Let us drink, drink, drink,
Till we cease to sob and think ”

“ Wolfe Weyerhauser's prey —
"'Tis the logic of the ancient world,
And the gospel of today."
Might is right when children die
By thousands in the mills,
When jeweled hands reach down and take
The gold their blood distills ”

“ Never yit could understan' why folkes kills theyselves ter live;
The sense o' handin' down ter children what all knows its death ter give;
The foolishness o' 'stroying every neighbor's field an' home an' hearth
By turnin' man-hogs loose ter waller in the gardens o' the earth. ”

“ I's gwine back ter de ole home place,
Res', sweet res';
Fo' daylite dies I'll see her face,
Res', sweet res';
I sees her standin' in de do',
De moonlite on de cabin flo',
En I's gwine home fo' ebermo',
Res', sweet res'. ”