Opened then the marble portals.
Fragrant incense filled the air,
(Sandalwood and roses rare)
While the girls with red-lipped languor
Scattered flowers everywhere.
Far away the fabled mountains,
(Like some paradise of old)
Glowed with lavender and gold.
Tense the Eunuch stood and silent--
Tense and sullen, tense and cold.
Now a quick impotent fury
Lashed him like a bronze-tipped cord.
Sprang he at the youthful lord,
Sprang again with blade all bloody . . .
(Famished lust and dripping sword.)
* * * * *
Night crept on all chill and ghastly,
Jackals trotted forth to bark,
(Murder shuddered, still and stark . . .)
By the palace ceased the fountain
And the whole grey world grew dark.
I. W. W. PRISON SONG
(Tune: "The Red Flag")
The pale and dismal daylight falls
Through iron bars on prison walls.
In chains we came from far and near,
And in dark cells they hold us here.
CHORUS
Defiant 'neath the Iron Heel;
Their walls of stone and bars of steel!
For though all hell at us is hurled,
We and our kind shall rule the world!
At us the blood-hounds are let loose,
The lynch-mobs with the knotted noose;
In legal sanctioned mask and gown
The New Black Hundreds hunt us down.
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