Greet you, my Brother! for I am all things-- Dust of the stars and the music of wings-- Eyes of the angels and Lucifer's mouth-- Wind of the North and a wind of the South-- Here are my sandals and staff to you: hail! THE SLOW EMERGER I am the Slow Emerger: Patience and wait for me, Nor be afraid that I will fail you-- You holder of fair morning heights-- You dancing with the rosy dawn! It has been long and hard for me, This task of slow emergence from the clod. Brute-shapes still prowl about me in the shadows, Their fangs are sometimes fastened to my feet; So that I cannot walk from pain of them, So that I halt and cry out--lonely in the night! Sometimes I see you, Woman-- You the watchful, waiting one of ages-- You with the dawn and godlike-- You past all torment that I know-- You the understanding. Sometimes I see you in a shaft of light Smiting the mists of valleys where I call, Dividing them as with a two-edged sword Swung by an angel! In that vision Rage of tusk and tooth and fang Falls like the waves in their wind-drifted foam Upon the scarlet laughter of wild poppies! I have deceived you; You in turn have punished me-- Have punished me with a mere semblance of yourself: A figure, rose-lipped, white fleshed, With wild witcheries of ample breasts-- Limbs smooth and dimpled as for kisses-- A dear and tender fiction of yourself; A fiction of yourself that did escape me, Leaped up to claim those hills remote from me Until I learned man must not chain a woman's soul! O Woman, wait for me-- Be patient; for I strive Out of the shadow Where the brute Still fastens with his fang My bleeding feet-- My weary, stumbling feet: Nor be afraid that I will fail you-- You holder of far morning heights-- You dancing with the dawn! A SONG OF THE NEW GODS The gods of vast Valhalla Are silent in their hall; Zeus looks not from Olympus; Jehovah's rod has fallen And Buddha sleeps among his Poppies: The old gods, the great gods, Thunder and nod no more! Yea, though we fiction them, Pretending that their stone eyes stare-- That their ears of marble harken, We know that all the gods of yesterday are dead! Weep not for Apollo; Sigh not for Cynthia; Call not for Aphrodite Coming from the foam; Beat not the breast for Balder-- Balder the Beautiful, Slain by dark Loki: These were but dreams in the night Of the day that is ours. Sing for the day that is ours-- For the gods who are here, Titans whose strength is greater Than snake-strangling Hercules! Sing for the gods of the oppressed, The cleansers of slums, The Christs of great Golgothas Mounded of old wrongs Hurting the people! Sing for the smiters of tenements-- Lairs of disease, of the white death! Sing for the slayers of sweat-shop owners-- The taskmasters of children!