Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN POETS' DEFENCE, by JOHN BROOKS WHEELWRIGHT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN POETS' DEFENCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rebel poets, who've given vicar aid
Last Line: Compact from bones and gold, of quirinus and mars.
Subject(s): Brooks, Van Wyck (1886-1963); Poetry & Poets; Revolutions


Rebel poets, who've given vicar aid
to murdered agitator and starved miner,
starve in your mind and murder in your thought
indignant will-to-help unfused with Revolution.
Nurture the calm of wrath. Though Labor fumble
a second Civil War, prevent a memory
like its first forged golden chain
to bind white peon and black serf apart.
While labor power'd come too nearly free
in the open market of free trade for jobs,
choose from Concord conspirators their thoughts
which still remain Sedition; forget braggarts
after victory whose rage contrived defeat.
Not by old images of grief and joy,
nor mummied memory of the Civil War,
nor Mayflower Compact, nor by rebel oaths
which made the Thirteen States palladium
and shield and shibboleth, adjure ourselves.
Now boom the double guns of Word and Deed
while liberal persons fall in love with ice men
and Wilson's ghost'll vampire Lenin's mummy.
Every memory of hope, every thought,
passions and nerves our stern philanthropy
with cheer, with eager patience for laborers' slow
smoldering of hate to crack down pedestals,
compact from bones and gold, of Quirinus and Mars.




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