Italy, 1859

WAIT a little : do we not wait ?
Louis Napoleon is not Fate ;
Francis Joseph is not Time ;
There’s One hath swifter feet than Crime ;
Cannon-parliaments settle nought;
Venice is Austria’s,— whose is Thought?
Minié is good, but, spite of change,
Gutenberg’s gun lias the longer range.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Laehesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

Wait, we say ; our years are long ;
Men are weak, but Man is strong ;
Since the stars first curved their rings,
We have looked on many things;
Great wars come and great wars go,
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow ;
We shall sec him come and gone,
This second-hand Napoleon.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

We saw the elder Corsican,
And Clotho muttered as she span,
While crowned lackeys bore the tram
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne,—
“ Sister, stint not length of thread!
Sister, stay the scissors dread !
On St. Helen’s granite bleak,
Hark, the vulture whets his beak !”
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

The Bonapartes, we know their bees,
That wade in honey, red to the knees ;
Their patent-reaper, its sheaves sleep sound
In doorless garners underground :
We know false Glory’s spendthrift race,
Pawning nations for feathers and lace;
It may be short, it may be long,—
“ ’Tis reckoning-day ! ” sneers unpaid Wrong.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist ! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

The cock that wears the eagle’s skin
Can promise what he ne’er could win ;
Slavery reaped for fine words sown,
System for all and rights for none,
Despots at top, a wild clan below,
Such is the Gaul from long ago :
Wash the black from the Ethiop’s face,
Wash the past out of man or race !
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

’Neath Gregory’s throne a spider swings
And snares the people for the kings:
“ Luther is dead ; old quarrels pass ;
The stake’s black scars are healed with grass”:
So dreamers prate; —did man e’er live
Saw priest or woman yet forgive ?
But Luther’s broom is left, and eyes
Peep o’er their creeds to where it lies.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever !

Smooth sails the ship of either realm,
Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ;
But we look down the deeps and mark
Silent workers in the dark,
Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs,
Old instincts hardening to new beliefs :
Patience, a little ; learn to wait;
Hours are long on the clock of Fate.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever !
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,
But only God endures forever !