Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

War
(From “Beyond the Breakers”)

George Sterling

(California poet, born 1869)

THE NIGHT was on the world, and in my sleep

I heard a voice that cried across the dark:

“Give steel!” And gazing I beheld a red,

Infernal stithy. There were Titans five

Assembled, thewed and naked and malign

Against the glare. One to the furnace throat,

Whence issued screams, fed shapes of human use—

The hammer, axe and plow. Those molten soon,

Another haled the dazzling ingot forth

With tongs, and gave it to the anvil. Two,

With massy sledges throbbing at the task,

Harried the gloom with unenduring stars

And poured a clangorous music on the dark,

With loud, astounding shock and counter-shock

Incessant. And the fifth colossus stood

The captain of that labor. From his form

Spread wings more black than Hell’s high-altar—ribbed

As are the vampire-bat’s. The night grew old,

And I was then aware they shaped a sword.…

In that domain and interval of dream

’Twas dawn upon the headlands of the world,

And I, appalled, beheld how men had reared

A mountain, dark below the morning star—

A peak made up of houses and of herds,

Of cradles, yokes and all the handiwork

Of man. Upon its crest were gems and gold,

Rare fabrics, and the woof of humble looms.

Harvests and groves and battlements were made

Part of its ramparts, and the whole was drenched

With oil and wine and honey. Then thereon

Men bound their sons, the fair, alert and strong,

Sparing no household. And when all were bound,

Brands were brought forth: the mount became a pyre.

Black from that red immensity of flame,

A tower of smoke, upcoiling to the sky,

Was shapen by the winds, and took the form

Of him who in the stithy gave command.

A shadow between day and men he stood;

His eyes looked forth on nothingness; his wings

Domed desolations, and the scarlet sun

Glowed through their darkness like a seal that God

Might set on Hell forever. Then the pyre

Shrank, and he reeled. Whereat, to save that shape

Their madness had evoked in death and pain,

Men rose and made a second sacrifice.