te_
_Strips both his victims in the night_,
_The assassin_!"

"PRAYER."

This is what I pray
In this horrible day,
In this terrible night,
God will give me light.
Such as I have had,
That I go not mad.

This is what I seek,
God will keep me meek
Till mine eyes behold,
Till my lips have told
All this hellish crime.--
_Then it's sleeping time_!

TO THE CHRISTIANS.

Take, then, your paltry Christ,
Your gentleman God.
_We_ want the carpenter's son,
With his saw and hod.

_We_ want the man who loved
The poor and oppressed,
Who hated the rich man and king
And the scribe and the priest.

_We_ want the Galilean
Who knew cross and rod.
It's your "good taste" that prefers
A bastard God!

"DEFEAT?"

Who is it speaks of defeat?--
I tell you a Cause like ours
Is greater than defeat can know;
It is the power of powers!

As surely as the earth rolls round,
As surely as the glorious sun
Brings the great world sea-wave,
Must our Cause be won!

What is defeat to us?--
Learn what a skirmish tells,
While the great Army marches on
To storm earth's hells!

TO JOHN RUSKIN.
(_After reading his_ "_Modern Painters_.")

Yes, you do well to mock us, you
Who knew our bitter woe--
To jeer the false, deny the true
In us blind struggling low,

While, on your pleasant place aloft
With flowers and clouds and streams,
At our black sweat and toil you scoffed
That marred your idle dreams.

"_Oh_, _freedom_, _what was that to us_,"
(You'd shout down to us there),
"_Except the freedom foul_, _vicious_,
_From all of good and fair_?

"_Obedience_, _faith_, _humility_,
_To us were empty names_."--
The like to you (might we reply)
Whose noisy life proclaims

Presumption, want of human love,
Impatience, filthy breath, {32}
The snob in soul who looks above,
Trampling on what's beneath.

When did you strive, in nobler part,
With love and gentleness,
To help one soul, to win one heart
To joy and hope and peace?

Go to, vain prophet, without faith
In God who maketh new,
With hankerings for this putrid death,
This Flesh-feast of the Few,

This Social Structure of red mud,
This Edifice of slime,
Whos