common goods of all
Fall into the hands of one,
Straight of Rights of Property
He will prate and Ownership.

"Property! Just Ownership?
Property is theft! O lies!
Craft and folly!--such a mixture
Man alone would dare invent.

"Never yet did Nature make
Properties, for pocketless
We are born into the world--
Who hath pockets in his pelt?

"None of us was ever born
With such little sacks devised
In our outer hides and skins
To enable us to steal!

"Only man, that creature smooth
Who in alien wool is garbed
Artfully, in artful wise
Made himself such pockets too.

"Pockets! as unnatural
As is property itself,
Or that law of have-and-hold.
Men are only pocket-thieves!

"Flamingly I hate them! Thee
All my hatred I bequeath.
Oh, my son, upon this shrine
Shalt thou swear eternal hate!

"Be the mortal foeman thou
Of th' oppressor, unforgiving
To thy very end of days!
Swear it--swear it here, my son!"

And the youngster swore as once
Hannibal. The moonbeams bleak
Yellowed on the bloodstone hoary
And that brace of misanthropes.

Later shall our harp record
How the young bear kept his faith
And his plighted oath,--for him
Shall our epic strings be strung.

With regard to Atta Troll,
Let us leave him for a space,
So we may the surer smite
Him with our unerring ball.

Traitor to Humanity!
Thou art judged, the sentence writ.
Of _lese-majeste_ thou'rt guilty,
And to-morrow sees the chase.

[Illustration]

CANTO XI

Like to sleepy dancing-girls
Lift the mountains white and cold,
Standing in their skirts of mist
Flaunted by the winds of morn.

Yet full soon their breasts shall glow
To the sun-god's burning kiss,
He shall tear the clinging veils
And illume their beauty nude.

In the early dawn had I
With Lascaro sallied forth
On a bear-hunt and the noon
Saw us at the Pont d'Espagne.

Thus is named the bridge that leads
From the land of France to Spain,
To barbarians of the West,
Centuries behind the times.

Full ten centuries they lie
From all modern thought removed,
And my own barbarians
Of the East--not more than two.

Lingering an