Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A FIFTH AVENUE PARADE, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A FIFTH AVENUE PARADE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What is this silent, dark crowd
Last Line: Machines and armies sensitive as souls.
Subject(s): Funerals; New York City; Parades; Triangle Factory Fire (1911); Women; Burials; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


I

WASHINGTON SQUARE
A STRANGER ON THE SIDEWALK TO POLICEMAN AT CURB
"What is this silent, dark crowd
Moving in fours,
Reaching so far up the road?
Poor folk they seem --
Undersized, pale and sad."

POLICEMAN
"Marching to the graves
Of a bunch of young working girls
Burned near here,
Seven score or more,
A factory fire."

A WOMAN ON THE SIDEWALK TO THE STRANGER
"My Lizzie works in a loft,
Reached by a wooden stair,
Soaking with oil till it sweats.
Sometime she too will burn,
When comes her fire-trap's turn.
God help us!"

II

Parade, march on!
Beating the death-march
Solemn with foot-falls.
Bands do not play for you.
Dirgeless your woe.
Sorrow propels you.

Flags do not fly, nor banners wave.
Leaders, officials, sashes, batons, placards,
None are here.
Only men and women, in their best clothing,
Mostly black,
Marching.
Some with umbrellas;
Others, women, without hats, in spite of the rain,
Rhythmic tread, the asphalt shining with wet.
Bearded men with haunted faces.
Deep breasted girls with abundant hair.
One a madonna face -- remote, hopeless, dazed --
Mary come back to see what her son's death availed.

Saturday afternoon,
Tramping the famous Avenue of fashion,
Reproach stamped in their route --
No, their invasion.
Motoring wealth held up by their ranks,
Cannot escape the sight.
Perplexity leads them;
Disappointment is in their faces.
How can America lure and neglect;
Invite and destroy?
Worse than Nero in Rome!
Christians now burn Christians and Jews.
Rich Jews burn poor Jews and Christians.
Clothing is cheaper so.

Perished, yes, perished is America!
Liberty's torch is a wrecker's decoy.
Pirates' and murderers' prey are we.
Where, O my God, is the hope of the world!

III

Locked was the door, they could not escape.
Against it they flung their bodies;
It did not yield.
Greed, scowling, stood at the door,
Barring the way.
Flame pursued them, wound round their knees;
Burned their hair and embraced them;
Leered as they shuddered and shrieked.
Smoke screened them from one another.
Poured bitter blackness down their throats.
Blinded they fled.
Aflame, yet in darkness, they pushed to the windows,
High above the street.
Clutching each other they leaped out,
Blazing downward like falling stars.

Pressed together, their young breasts,
Furiously beat with consternation.
Death flew laughingly past the windows;
Dove down with them as they fell;
Shrieking a warning lest any stay their fate;
Kept clear the way for their destruction.

In the western sky a young moon swam in gold.
Over the trees in the Square, on a church tower,
Stiffly stood a lighted cross.
Neither God nor man helped the girls.
Out of the heavens came only the wind,
Fanning the flames, blowing the sparks far and wide,
Till in the Square the children clapped their hands,
Danced up and down and shouted for glee.
Terrifying sounds filled the air;
Crackling and snapping of flames;
Crashing glass;
The wails of the crowd as it saw the girls jump;
The clangor of the bells on the fire-trucks;
The hoarse calls of firemen.

Out of the smoke and the flame,
Downward dashed the girls through roofs of glass.
Mangled and dying they set fire to other shops.
Their death but multiplied death.

IV

SUNG UNDER THE WASHINGTON ARCH
In honor of a hero's fame
Who dared a tyrant's armies' face.
You build memorials to his name,
And then usurp the tyrant's place.

The richest man in all the land,
He risked his wealth and risked his head;
But with the people took his stand,
And without pay the people led.

What monuments to rebel deeds --
To generous hearts and acts that match --
Can heal the wounds today that bleed,
Or from our masters power snatch?

Dead as the Sphinx in Egypt's sand,
Dead as the stones in ancient Rome,
Your statues, arches, columns stand.
They cannot build the poor a home.

They cannot give the idle work.
They cannot pay the sick man's rent.
They cannot choke bought justice' smirk,
Nor make vain, insolent wealth relent.

Great names abound, great lives are few.
Great memories but little men.
You land the old but crush the new.
What mean these helpless carvings then.

V

The end is death whatever the road may be.
But death is not the same that comes to all.
One seeks the goal, disclosing to men great love;
Another flees, reached for by bloody hands.
Slowly, a long way off, one sees the end.
Another drops as in a hidden pit,
Silenced from heaven by an unheard bolt;
Or toiling for a little bread is burned to death.

O faithful feet that follow to the grave!
Bare heads uncovered to the April rain!
You face, each day, as dread a death as these.
Yes, laugh at heaven's belated, hindering rain.
Why splash on these, ye dumb and foolish skies.
You only soak the clothes they have to wear.
They're not afire, the fire is out --
-- Yes, yes, the fire is out --
Save in their hearts and that rain cannot quench.

VI

SUNG IN FRONT OF A CHURCH
Where is the God you boast you know?
What is He doing -- your God of love?
Scorns He, like you, to glance below?
Spends He the time in sport above?

Home of the fear of sin is this!
Ha, ha, who taught you what sin may be?
Fools! whose idea of heaven is
Sexless to loaf eternally.

Take it from us what a sin is like --
Burning our girls, our slavery's leaven.
Sin is the bargain that you strike,
Who snatch the earth and slip us heaven.

Our bodies are as much to us
As what you call your souls to you.
Share with us labor's overplus.
Do as you would have others do.

Silent, and hard, till harm is done;
Compelled to speak, now shrewdly soft;
Breathing pure air, basking in sun,
You lock us in a death-trap loft.

Hear ye! With God you are at strife.
Soon, soon His foes He will remove.
Sell your churches and give us life;
Kneel in the streets and give us love.

VII

Young Jewesses, dead ere you wed,
I miss you and the new life that you brought
To our new world --
Your foreign looks and ways;
Your centuries-old race,
Bearer in the flesh
Of blows and stripes from every land;
The marks of man's resentment at the spur of mind.

You warmed my heart toward life.
You added meaning to my world.
This new world, old ere its time --
Like a young man dragging his feet.
Your laughing labors;
Your joy in the sun and friendly talk;
Your arms around each other;
Your bodies renunciation of expense;
Your saving for the home or for your blood abroad --
For a brother's ambition or a father's food;
All this I loved.

In the morning from the subway you hurried,
Filling the sidewalk with swift black crowds.
At noon, bare-headed, arm in arm,
You chose your push-cart lunch.
At night you laughed and struggled
To enter a Williamsburg car,
Or looked for your lovers
On the watch in door-ways.
Shyly they greeted you,
And walked by your side.

Why should I mourn your fate?
For those boys there are now other girls.
For you a more thrilling embrace
Than any of maid's or of man's.
What love is as fierce as a flame?
What man is as constant as death?

VIII

VOICES IN THE AIR
O foolish world to burn us!
We could have worked for you longer.
Been your slaves longer.
Our strength, our youth would have fled
Soon enough, too, if you envied that.
Ten years or so,
From fourteen to twenty-four does for us.
We fade. We go to husbands and motherhood,
With the life already bled out of us,
To breed a weakened race.

O mad world,
Why don't you do your work
Mechanically?
Why don't machines decrease evil,
Instead of decreasing jobs,
And intensifying toil?
You make machines of us;
You exalt machines and degrade humans.
Why don't you give human beings,
Born miraculously into the light of day,
More of the joy of their birth?
Joy of the sun, seen in heaven;
Joy of the earth, sweet in odor;
Joy of the terrible waters of lake, river and ocean;
Joy of knowledge;
Joy of strength and mastery;
Joy of laughter and song;
Joy of loving kindness
And of reciprocal affection.

IX

VOICES IN THE PROCESSION
Driven from Zion by foes of Jehovah
We have wandered forty generations
In wildernesses of oppression and poverty.
Without the hatred of war, nations have ridden over us,
Drawn our teeth, bowed our shoulders,
Killed our men,
Raped our women,
Dashed our children against the stones,
Stole our goods.

Now again we mourn.

May their women's jewels burn holes in their flesh,
Eat their fingers, devour their breasts and shoulders,
Scald their scalps!
May their children be deformed in body
As they are deformed in soul!
May they turn upon each other, publicly and without pity!
May the new weapon of slaves' wrath
Strike them and leave only scattered human scraps!
May the knife, the bullet, the bomb torment their dreams,
And some day find their flesh and destroy it!

OTHER VOICES IN THE PROCESSION
Remember Jehovah and forgive,
Lest He turn our curses upon our heads,
Delivering over our enemies to greater joys.
Has the Lord's rule come to an end?
His hand is like an earthquake,
His word like thunders.
Lean unto the Lord ye who dishonor His name.
Zion anew will arise,
Under other skies,
Those our fathers knew in the East.
Endure till the days of new worlds!

X

PEOPLE ON THE SIDEWALK SING A HYMN TO JUSTICE

First Voice

Up from the clod
We ascend to God;
From the beast, from the cave,
From the lash, from the slave.
Save, O save
The light that is soul,
The laughter of love.
Show us the whole,
Ye powers above.

Second Voice
Law is now the will of the strong.
Justice, too often, the hate of small hearts.
Power defends the ancient wrong.
Fortune no duty imparts.
Answer our efforts by power to do.
Give us desire for that which is true.
Cease hatreds, injury, treachery's wiles,
Tyrannies, terrors, the lie that beguiles.
All the past riches that man has secured,
All the past sufferings that man has endured,
All endless time for our building has wrought,
Of bone, muscle, brain, of feeling, of thought,
Dome now by brotherhood and justice unbought.

Third Voice

Break justice's sword, there are deaths enough.
Break justice's scales, she's not a grocer.
Let her hands help; not hold such stuff.
Let her eyes see the gold they dose her.

Fourth Voice

Give me justice before I die.
My life is an unheeded cry.
Let me be what I can before I die.
Is power only the right to deny
The aspirations of the weak,
And crush the meek?
Let me sing the song that is in me,
Do the deed, show the love that may win thee.
O justice, O fullness of life divine,
Make Life's unborn power mine.

Fifth Voice

No prophet or saint
Has guessed the gift
The world contains,
Clean of all taint,
Of blemish, of rift,
Without conscious pains,
If men will work with united hands --
One people formed from many lands.

All Voices

Soon, shall we wake from brutish sleep,
From sunken self to joy in life perceived as radiant strength.
Coming like strong horses on whose heads shines the sun.
Courageous as little birds who fly far over the waves of the ocean.
Soon, soon we shall help each other conquer the power to rule --
Not man -- but nature for man's soul-feasting and social joy.
Soon, soon we shall glory in self-rule and self-help,
Aided by all good companions in ordered armies of effort,
The joy of larger consciousness in all.
The joy of power heaped high from garnered waste,
From man's drugged dreams and childish sports.
The joy of genius's new birth.
Its creature now not only art but life;
New means of lifting man above the brute;
Machines and armies sensitive as souls.





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