FRANK LITTLE AT CALVARY

He walked under the shadow of the Hill

Where men are fed into the fires

And walled apart...

Unarmed and alone,

He summoned his mates from the pit's mouth

Where tools rested on the floors

And great cranes swung

Unemptied, on the iron girders.

And they, who were the Lords of the Hill,

Were seized with a great fear,

When they heard out of the silence of wheels

The answer ringing

In endless reverberations

Under the mountain...

So they covered up their faces

And crept upon him as he slept...

Out of eye-holes in black cloth

They looked upon him who had flung

Between them and their ancient prey

The frail barricade of his life...

And when night — that has connived at so much —

Was heavy with the unborn day,

They haled him from his bed...

Who might know of that wild ride?

Only the bleak Hill —

The red Hill, vigilant,

Like a blood-shot eye

In the black mask of night —

Dared watch them as they raced

By each blind-folded street

Godiva might have ridden down...

But when they stopped beside the Place,

I know he turned his face

Wistfully to the accessory night...

And when he saw — against the sky,

Sagged like a silken net

Under its load of stars —

The black bridge poised

Like a gigantic spider motionless...

I know there was a silence in his heart,

As of a frozen sea,

Where some half lifted arm, mid-way

Wavers, and drops heavily...

I know he waved to life,

And that life signaled back, transcending space,

To each high-powered sense,

So that he missed no gesture of the wind

Drawing the shut leaves close...

So that he saw the light on comrades’ faces

Of camp fires out of sight...

And the savor of meat and bread

Blew in his nostrils... and the breath

Of unrailed spaces

Where shut wild clover smelled as sweet

As a virgin in her bed.

I know he looked once at America,

Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe,

And once at the skies whirling above him...

Then all that he had spoken against

And struck against and thrust against

Over the frail barricade of his life

Rushed between him and the stars...