_Maid, matron, man unto her meekly bow. She with contempt or ridicule may cow. They dare not speak, or dress, or love, or hate, At variance with the program on her slate._ _Her subtle smile, e'en men to thinkers grown, Are loath to lose; before its charm they're prone. With great ado, they publicly conform-- Vain, cowards, vain; revolt_ MUST _raise a storm!_ _The "indiscreet," when hidden from her sight, Attempt to live as they consider "right." Lo! Walls have ears! The loyal everywhere The searchlight turn, and loudly shout, "Beware!"_ _In tyranny the Mistress is supreme. "Obedience," that is her endless theme. Al countries o'er, in city, town and glen, Her aid is sought by bosses over men._ _Of Greed, her brain is cunningly devised. From Ignorance, her bulky body's sized. When at her ease, she acts as judge and jury. But she's the Mob when 'roused to fighting fury._ _Dame Grundy is, by far, the fiercest foe To ev'ry kind of progress, that we know. So Freedom is, to her, a poison thing. Who heralds it, he must her death knell ring._ [Illustration] A GREETING. By ALEXANDER BERKMAN. Dear Friends:-- I am happy, inexpressibly happy to be in your midst again, after an absence of fourteen long years, passed amid the horrors and darkness of my Pennsylvania nightmare. * * * Methinks the days of miracles are not past. They say that nineteen hundred years ago a man was raised from the dead after having been buried for three days. They call it a great miracle. But I think the resurrection from the peaceful slumber of a three days' grave is not nearly so miraculous as the actual coming back to life from a living death of fourteen years duration;--'tis the twentieth century resurrection, not based on ignorant credulity, nor assisted by any Oriental jugglery. No travelers ever return, the poets say, from the Land of Shades beyond the river Styx--and may be it is a good thing for them that they don't--but you can see that there is an occasional exception even to that rule, for I have just returned from a hell, the like of which, for human brutality and fiendish barbarity, is not to be found even in the fire-and-brimstone creeds of our loving Christians.