Christ the Leader of Workingmen, the Agitator, the Disturber,
Christ the Labor-organizer, Christ the Archetypal Socialist,
Friend of the dwellers in the pits of Life, Consoler of earth’s
exploited,
Who once with the lash scourged from the Temple the unclean
graft-brood of usurers.
And the rotund Bishop’s words were as the crackling of dry thorns
Under a pot, bubbling without use in the desert of dreary
platitudes.
The story he told was spiced and garnished with profane words,
Whereat the Leaders laughed in their cups, making great show of
merriment,
So that the banquet-hall rang, and wine was spilt on the linen.
Wine as red as blood—the blood of the shattered miner,
Blood of the boy in the rifle-pits, blood of the coughing
child-slave,
Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed.
And still I watched the Socialist.
Sober, judicial, observant
And full of greater wisdom
he was than to laugh with the tipsy
Leaders.
His eyes were fixed on the
Bishop, vice-regent of God upon earth.
And as I watched the Socialist,
the unmoved, the contemplative one,
He thoughtfully took his pencil,
he took the fine and large card
Whereon the names of the rich
foods and all the costly wines were
printed,
And made a few notes of the
feast, notes of the Bishop’s speech,
Notes to remind him to search
the slums for the great, God-given
prosperity,
Which all the Judges, Lawmakers,
Captains and Leaders knew to be
“our”
portion;
Notes of the flowers, the
wine, the lights, the music, the splendor,
Notes of the Leaders’
oratory, notes of the Bishop’s deep-voiced
unctiousness,
Notes he made; and as I looked
at the notes he was carefully
writing,
The words ran red like wine
and blood, they blazed like the blazing
lights!
Words they were of blood and
fire, that spread, that filled the
banquet-hall.
Words of old, I read them—“MENE,
MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSHIN!—
Weighed in the Balance you
are, ye Leaders respected of men,
You Statesmen, Lawmakers,
Judges, Captains, Bishops, vice-regents of
God!
Weighed and tried and found
wanting. Give way, now, to what shall
come
after!
Make ye way for the Men who
shall do what ye have but neglected and
shirked!
Make ye way for a Time which
hath more than Power and Greed for its
watchwords!
Soon your day shall decline
forever, your sun shall sink and shall
vanish.
Then from the Cellars of Life
the darkness-dwellers shall issue,
Greeting another daunt which
shall have more than pain for its
portion.
Then no more shall the humble,
the lowly, the friends of the
Nazarene
Carpenter
Be starved, be mangled for
gold, be crucified, slaughtered, bled.
Make ye way!...Make ye way!...”