LOLA RIDGE: Reveille

Lola Ridge
(1873-1941)

REVEILLE

  Come forth, you workers!
  Let the fires go cold–
  Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs–
  Let the iron run wild
  Like a red bramble on the floors–
  Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine
  And the shrapnel lying on the wharves–
  Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom–
  Come,
  With your ashen lives,
  Your lives like dust in your hands.

  I call upon you, workers.
  It is not yet light
  But I beat upon your doors.
  You say you await the Dawn
  But I say you are the Dawn.
  Come, in your irresistible unspent force
  And make new light upon the mountains.

  You have turned deaf ears to others–
  Me you shall hear.
  Out of the mouths of turbines,
  Out of the turgid throats of engines,
  Over the whistling steam,
  You shall hear me shrilly piping.
  Your mills I shall enter like the wind,
  And blow upon your hearts,
  Kindling the slow fire.

  They think they have tamed you, workers–
  Beaten you to a tool
  To scoop up hot honor
  Till it be cool–
  But out of the passion of the red frontiers
  A great flower trembles and burns and glows
  And each of its petals is a people.

  Come forth, you workers–
  Clinging to your stable
  And your wisp of warm straw–
  Let the fires grow cold,
  Let the iron spill out of the troughs,
  Let the iron run wild
  Like a red bramble on the floors….

  As our forefathers stood on the prairies
  So let us stand in a ring,
  Let us tear up their prisons like grass
  And beat them to barricades–
  Let us meet the fire of their guns
  With a greater fire,
  Till the birds shall fly to the mountains
  For one safe bough.

LOLA RIDGE POETRY
kempis.nl poetry magazine

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