Frank Little At Calvary

I     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...     II     Life thunders on...     Over the black bridge     The line of lighted cars     Creeps like a monstrous serpent     Spooring gold...     Watchman, what of the track?     Night... silence... stars...     All's Well!     III     Light...     (Breaking mists...     Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold...)     Light over the pit mouths,     Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill...     (The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.)     Light...     Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals...     Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips...     Gleaming metallic and cold     In numberless slivers of steel...     Light over the trestles and the iron clips     Of the black bridge - poised like a gigantic spider motionless -     Sweet inquisition of light, like a child's wonder...     Intrusive, innocently staring light     That nothing appals...     Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves,     Cooing and calling     All winged and avid things     Waking the early flies, keen to the scent...     Green-jeweled iridescent flies     Unerringly steering -     Swarming over the blackened lips,     The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold...     Watchman, what of the Hill?     Wheels turn;     The laden cars     Go rumbling to the mill,     And Labor walks beside the mules...     All's Well with the Hill!