________________________________________________
Title: A Toast
Author: Lola Ridge [
More Titles by Ridge]
Not your martyrs anointed of heaven--
The ages are red where they trod--
But the Hunted--the world's bitter leaven--
Who smote at your imbecile God--
A being to pander and fawn to,
To propitiate, flatter and dread
As a thing that your souls are in pawn to,
A Dealer who traffics the dead;
A Trader with greed never sated,
Who barters the souls in his snares,
That were trapped in the lusts he created,
For incense and masses and prayers--
They are crushed in the coils of your halters;
'Twere well--by the creeds ye have nursed--
That ye send up a cry from your altars,
A mass for the Martyrs Accursed;
A passionate prayer from reprieval
For the Brotherhood not understood--
For the Heroes who died for the evil,
Believing the evil was good.
To the Breakers, the Bold, the Despoilers,
Who dreamed of a world over-thrown...
They who died for the millions of toilers--
Few--fronting the nations alone!
--To the Outlawed of men and the Branded,
Whether hated or hating they fell--
I pledge the devoted, red-handed,
Unfaltering Heroes of Hell!
[The end]
Lola Ridge's poem: Toast
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
