Anarchism

Tis not when I am here,
In these homeless homes,
Where sin and shame and disease
And foul death comes;

‘Tis not when heart and brain
Would be still and forget
Men and women and children
Dragged down to the pit.

But when I hear them declaiming
Of “liberty,” “order” and “law,”
The husk-hearted gentleman
And the mud-hearted bourgeois,

That a sombre, hateful desire
Burns up slow in my breast,
To wreck the great, guilty temple.
And give us rest!