The Feast of Vultures
(As the three Anarchists, Vaillant, Henry and Caserio, were led to their several executions, a voice from the prison cried loudly, “Vive l’anarchie!” Through watch and ward the cry escaped, and no man owned the voice; but the cry is still resounding through the world.)
A moan in the gloam in the air-peaks heard—The Bird of Omen—the wild, fierce Bird,AflightIn the night,Like a whizz of light,Arrowy winging before the storm,Far away flinging,The whistling, singing,White-curdled drops, wind-blown and warm,From its beating, flapping,Thunderous wings;Crashing and clappingThe split night swings,And rocks and totters,Bled of its levin,And reels and muttersA curse to Heaven!Reels and mutters and rolls and dies,With a wild light streaking its black, blind eyes.
Far, far, far,Through the red, mad morn,Like a hurtling star,Through the air upborne,The Herald-Singer,The Terror-Bringer,Speeds—and behind, through the cloud-rags torn,Gather and wheel a million wings,Clanging as iron where the hammer rings;The whipped sky shivers,The White Gate shakes,The ripped throne quivers,The dumb God wakes,And feels in his heart the talon-stings—The dead bodies hurled from beaks for slings.“Ruin! Ruin!” the Whirlwind cries,And it leaps at his throat and tears his eyes;“Death for death, as ye long have dealt;The heads of your victims your heads shall pelt;The blood ye wrung to get drunk upon,Drink, and be poisoned! On, Herald, on!”
Behold, behold,How a moan is grown!A cry hurled high ’gainst a scaffold’s joist!The Voice of Defiance—the loud, wild Voice!WhirledThrough the world,A smoke-wreath curled(Breath ’round hot kisses) around a fire!See! the ground hissesWith curses, and glissesWith red-streaming blood-clots of long-frozen ire,Waked by the flyingWild voice as it passes;Groaning and crying,The surge of the massesRolls and flashesWith thunderous roar—Seams and lashesThe livid shore—Seams and lashes and crunches and beats,And drags a ragged wall to its howling retreats!
Swift, swift, swift,‘Thwart the blood-rain’s fall,Through the fire-shot riftOf the broken wall,The prophet-cryingThe storm-strong sighing,Flies—and from under Night’s lifted pall,Swarming, menace ten million darts,Uplifting fragments of human shards!
Ah, white teeth chatter,And dumb jaws fall,While winged fires scatterTill gloom gulfs allSave the boom of the cannon that storm the fortsThat the people bombard with their comrades’ hearts;“Vengeance! Vengeance!” the voices scream,And the vulture pinions whirl and stream!“Knife for knife, as ye long have dealt;The edge ye whetted for us be felt,Ye chopper of necks, on your own, your own!Bare it, Coward! On, Prophet, on!”
Behold how highRolls a prison cry!
=Philadelphia,= August 1894.