Lola Ridge

Sons of Belial

I
 
 We are old,
 Old as song.
 Before Rome was
 Or Cyrene.
 Mad nights knew us
 And old men’s wives.
 We knew who spilled the sacred oil
 For young-gold harlots of the town….
 We knew where the peacocks went
 And the white doe for sacrifice.
II
 
 We were the Sons of Belial.
 One black night
 Centuries ago
 We beat at a door
 In Gilead….
 We took the Levite’s concubine
 We plucked her hands from off the door….
 We choked the cry into her throat
 And stuck the stars among her hair….
 We glimpsed the madly swaying stars
 Between the rhythms of her hair
 And all our mute and separate strings
 Swelled in a raging symphony….
 Our blood sang paeans
 All that night
 Till dawn fell like a wounded swan
 Upon the fields of Gilead.
III
 
 We are old….
 Old as song….
 We are dumb song.
 (Epics tingled
 In our blood
 When we haled Hypatia
 Over the stones
 In Alexandria.)
 Could we loose
 The wild rhythms clinched in us….
 March in bands of troubadours….
 We would be of gentle mood.
 When Christ healed us
 Who were dumb—
 When he freed our shut-in song—
 We strewed green palms
 At his pale feet…
 We sang hosannas
 In Jerusalem.
 And all our fumbling voices blent
 In a brief white harmony.
 (But a mightier song
 Was in us pent
 When we nailed Christ
 To a four-armed tree.)
IV
 
 We are young.
 When we rise up with singing roots,
 (Warm rains washing
 Gutters of Berlin
 Where we stamped Rosa… Luxemburg
 On a night in spring.)
 Rhythms skurry in our blood.
 Little nimble rats of song
 In our feet run crazily
 And all is dust… we trample… on.
 Mad nights when we make ritual
 (Feet running before the sleuth-light…
 And the smell of burnt flesh
 By a flame-ringed hut
 In Missouri,
 Sweet as on Rome’s pyre….)
 We make ropes do rigadoons
 With copper feet that jig on air….
 We are the Mob….
 Old as song.
 Tyre knew us
 And Israel.
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