No More Learning

To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here, anyhow.


4.

But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is,
gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England;
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal
vault--haste!
Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box
up his bones for a journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied
clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston
bay.


5.

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government
cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it
with foot and dragoons.

This centre-piece for them!
Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!
The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not
stay;
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.

You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and
more than its own.


6.

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this
day;
You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.



_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES. _[1]


1.

A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart
closer than any yet.


2.

I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of
cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single
corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the
repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?


3.

O Liberty!