If you will take a kernel of wheat And first make free The outer flake and then pare off the meat Of edible starch you'll find at the kernel's core The life germ. And this young man's words were dim With blasphemy, sedition at the rim, Which fired the heads of dreamers like new wine. But this was just the outward force of him. For this young man's philosophy was more Than such external ferment, being divine With secrets so profound no plummet line Can altogether sound it. It means growth Of soul by watching, And the creation of eyes Over your mind's eyes to supervise A clear activity and to ward off sloth. What he had in mind was scotching And killing the snake of Hatred and stripping the glove From the hand of Hypocrisy and quenching the fire Of falsehood and unbrotherly Desire. What he had in mind was simply Love. But he was prosecuted As a rebel and as a rebel executed Right in a public place where all could see. And his mother watched him hang for the felony. He hated to die being but thirty-three, And fearing that his poems might be lost. And certain members of the Bar Association, And of the Civic Federation, And of the League of Public Efficiency, And a legion Of men devoted to religion, With policemen, soldiers, roughs, Loose women, thieves and toughs, Came out to see him die, And hooted at him giving up the ghost In great despair and with a fearful cry! And after him there was a man named Paul Who almost spoiled it all. And protozoan things like hypocrites, And parasitic things who make a food Of the mysteries of God for earthly power Must wonder how before this young man's hour They lived without his blood, Shed on that day, and which In red cells is so rich. WHAT YOU WILL April rain, delicious weeping, Washes white bones from the grave, Long enough have they been sleeping. They are cleansed, and now they crave Once more on the earth to gather Pleasure from the springtime weather. The pine trees and the long dark grass Feed on what is placed below. Think you not that there doth pass In them something we did know? This spell--well, friends, I greet ye once again With joy--but with a most unuttered pain. THE CITY The Sun hung like a red balloon As if he would not rise; For listless Helios drowsed and yawned. He cared not whether the morning dawned, The brother of Eos and the Moon Stretched him and rubbed his eyes. He would have dreamed the dream again That found him under sea: He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side, He saw Hæphestos with his bride; He traced from Enna's flowery plain The child Persephone. There was a time when heaven's vault Cracked like a temple's roof. A new hierarchy burst its shell, And as the sapphire ceiling fell, From stern Jehovah's mad assault, Vast spaces stretched aloof: