poetry

Anarchist Beginnings

J. William Lloyd, “A Grandeur and a Dreaming” (1901)

July 20, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
HUMAN Life seems but a seeming, A phantasm & a dreaming, Of a grandeur & a gleaming That no one life may possess. ‘Tis a downward, dark ward groping, Upward soaring, high and hoping Search for pathways, easy-sloping, That no human feet yet press. Yet it may be that the glory, Dreamed of now since ages hoary, Kindling still in song and story, Each man somewhat, all men know. All the downward, dark ward groping, All the sky-ward, sunward hoping, Finds at last the roadway sloping, Where all feet together go. J Wm. Lloyd. J. William Lloyd, “A Grandeur and […]
Anarchist Beginnings

John Henry Mackay, “Anarchy” (1888)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Ever reviled, accursed, ne’er understood, Thou art the grisly terror of our age. “Wreck of all order,” cry the multitude, “Art thou, and war and murder’s endless rage.” O, let them cry. To them that ne’er have striven The truth that lies behind a word to find, To them the word’s right meaning was not given. They shall continue blind among the blind. But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure, Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken. I give thee to the future! Thine secure When each at least unto himself shall waken. Comes it […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Walter Everette Hawkins, “Credo” (1920)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
CREDO I am an Iconoclast. I break the limbs of idols And smash the traditions of men. I am an Anarchist. I believe in war and destruction Not in the killing of men, But the killing of creed and custom. I am an Agnostic. I accept nothing without questioning. It is my inherent right and duty To ask the reason why. To accept without a reason Is to debase one’s humanity And destroy the fundamental process In the ascertainment of Truth. I believe in Justice and Freedom. To me Liberty is priestly and kingly; Freedom is my Bride, Liberty my […]
poetry

Joseph Verey, “Vera Sassulitch” (1880)

August 5, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
VERA SASSULITCH. Joseph Verey If any asked the student, which He thought the prettiest among A score of Moscow school-girls, “Young And gentle Vera Sassulitch,” He answered with a ready tongue. Netchaieff was the student named, And Vera and his sister moved In the same social grade, and loved Each other, and the student claimed The heart of Vera unreproved. But oft Netchaieffs mind was bent— With passion which to youth belongs— Upon the many cruel wrongs Of a despotic Government, Deriding it in tales and songs. And some of these to Vera given, Around her drew the fatal coil […]
poetry

Louise Michel, “Memories of Caledonia” (1887)

July 4, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[A Final Thought] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] MEMORIES OF CALEDONIA (SONG OF THE CAPTIVES) Here the winter has no hold, Here the woods are always green; From the Ocean, the fresh breeze Blows over the dreary deserts, And so profound is the silence That the insect which sways Alone troubles the calm of the air. Evening, on these remotes shores, Sometimes rises a sweet song: It is some poor shellfish Which murmurs while it opens. In the forest, the oleanders, The newly blooming flowers Quiver with love in the wind. See, from the starry waves, Breaks a wandering whiteness! […]
poetry

Joaquin Miller, “Sophia Perovskaya” (1881)

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
Sophie Perovskaya, LIBERTY’S MARTYRED HEROINE. Hanged April 15, 1881, For Helping to Rid the World of a Tyrant. Down from her high estate she stept,             A maiden, gently born And by the icy Volga kept             Sad watch, and waited morn; And peasants say that where she slept             The new moon dipped her horn.                         Yet on and on, through shoreless snows                                     Stretched tow’rd the great north pole,                         The foulest wrong the good God known                                     Rolls as dark rivers roll.                         While never once for all these woes                                     Upspeaks one human soul. She toiled, […]
poetry

George Barlow, “Sophia Perovskaia” (1895)

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
SOPHIA PEROVSKAIA. Blue-eyed, fair-haired, a girl in outward seeming, With lips, men held, that only cared to sing, When thy foot passed along the meadows dreaming Soft dreams and tender of the gold-haired Spring— When other maidens dreamed with longing wonder Of love, thou crowned with Spring’s most loving light Beneath blue skies wast dreaming of the thunder, Beneath the morn wast dreaming of the night . High-born, thou didst forsake the lordly places; Thy young heart thrilled at Freedom’s trumpet-call: Thou wanderedst forth, a light for poor men’s faces; Love, wealth, repose,—thou didst surrender all. And has not yet […]
poetry

Sir Henry Parkes, “The Beauteous Terrorist” (Sophie Perovskaya, 1885)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
“She was beautiful. It was not the beauty which dazzles at first sight, but that which fascinates the more, the more it is regarded. “A blonde, with a pair of blue eyes, serious and penetrating, under a broad and spacious forehead. A delicate little nose; a charming mouth, which showed, when she smiled, two rows of very fine white teeth. “It was, however, her countenance as a whole which was the attraction. There was something brisk, vivacious, and at the same time, ingenuous in her rounded face. She was girlhood personified. Notwithstanding her twenty-six years, she seemed scarcely eighteen. A […]
poetry

Hubert Church, “Vera Figner” (1908)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
[Vera Figner, Russian Revolutionary; a woman of great charm and radiant beauty. She was condemned to imprisonment for life, and for twenty years was immured in the living rave of the Schlusselburg Fortress. When these lines were composed the writer thought that Vera Figner was still in prison. By a strange chance, on three days after the lines were written, he read that Vera Figner had been released.] I. Vera Figner, when the breezes blow, Do you awaken to the hostile morn? Or do you live so numbed you do not know, Like a toad in a granite tempest-worn? Vera […]
poetry

Walt Whitman, “A Woman Waits for Me” (“Poem of Procreation”)

May 15, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Among the references in Emma Goldman’s writings on sex, Walt Whitman is undoubtedly key. His poem, “A Woman Waits for Me,” is referenced at the end of “The Element of Sex in Life.”] A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, […]