James Oppenheim – Immoral

I keep walking around myself, mouth open with amazement:

For by all the ethical rules of life, I ought to be solemn and sad,

But, look you, I am bursting with joy.

I scold myself:

I say: Boy, your work has gone to pot:

You have scarcely enough money to last out the week:

And think of your responsibilities!

Whereupon, my heart bubbles over,

I puff on my pipe, and think how solemnly the world goes by my window,

And how childish people are, wrinkling their foreheads over groceres and rent.

For here jets life fresh and stinging in the vivid air:

The winds laugh to the jovial Earth:

The day is keen with Autumn's fine flavor of having done the year's work.

Earth, in her festival, calls her children to the crimson revels.

The trees are a drunken riot: the sunshine is dazzling...

Yes, I ought, I suppose, to be saddened and tragic:

But joy drops from me like ripe apples.

James Oppenheim – Bread and Roses

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,

For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,

For they are women's children, and we mother them again.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.

Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.

As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,

The rising of the women means the rising of the race.

No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.

The American Magazine, December, 1911.

James Oppenheim – The Slave

They set the slave free, striking off his chains…

Then he was as much of a slave as ever.

He was still chained to servility,

He was still manacled to indolence and sloth,

He was still bound by fear and superstition,

By ignorance, suspicion, and savagery…

His slavery was not in the chains,

But in himself….

They can only set free men free…

And there is no need of that:

Free men set themselves free.

James Oppenheim – The Runner In The Skies

Who is the runner in the skies,

With her blowing scarf of stars,

And our Earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart?

Her feet are on the winds, where space is deep,

Her eyes are nebulous and veiled,

She hurries through the night to a far lover.

James Oppenheim – The New God

Ye morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells,

And with dew water the walk's dust for the burden-bearing ants:

Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells of gold

And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . .

O now I see by the opening of blossoms,

And of bills of the hungry fledglings,

And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects,

Morning's business is afoot: Earth is busied with a million mouths!

Where goes eaten grass and thrush-snapped dragonfly?

Creation eats itself, to spawn in swarming sun-rays . . .

Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on life . . .

But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats,

Like a well of light moving in morning's light,

What is this garmented animal that comes eating and drinking among you?

What is this upright one, with spade and with shears?

He is the visible and the invisible,

Behind his mouth and his eyes are other mouth and eyes . . .

Thirster after visions

He sees the flowers to their roots and the Earth back through its silent ages:

He parts the sky with his gaze:

He flings a magic on the hills, clothing them with Upanishad music,

Peopling the valley with dreamed images that vanished in Greece

   millenniums back;

And in the actual morning, out of longing, shapes on the hills

To-morrow's golden grandeur . . .

O ye million hungerers and ye sun-rays

Ye are the many mothers of this invisible god,

This Earth's star and sun that rises singing and toiling among you,

This that is I, in joy, in the garden,

Singing to you, ye morning-glories,

Calling to you, ye swinging spears of the larkspur.