XIII

That awful mantle they are drawing close,

      Shall be searched, one day, by the shafts of Doom,

Through double folds now hoodwinking the brows.

      Resuscitated monarchs disentomb

Grave-reptiles with them, in their new life-throes:

      Let such beware. Behold, the people waits,

Like God. As He, in his serene of might,

      So they, in their endurance of long straits.

Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night

      Ye tread them with that absolute heel which grates

And grinds them flat from all attempted height.

      You kill worms sooner with a garden-spade

Than you kill peoples: peoples will not die;

      The tail curls stronger when you lop the head;

They writhe at every wound and multiply,

      And shudder into a heap of life that's made

Thus vital from God's own vitality.

      'Tis hard to shrivel back a day of God's

Once fixed for judgment: 'tis as hard to change

      The people's, when they rise beneath their loads

And heave them from their backs with violent wrench,

      To crush the oppressor. For that judgment rod's

The measure of this popular revenge.