The White Man-Spirit Of Mussolini
The white man stands with murd'rous gaze,
And looks with envy at all wealth;
For gold he has a burning craze
That crowns him with his bloody stealth.
From shore to shore he roams at large,
With maxim guns and poisoned darts:
He sails aboard his nimble barge
To rip and bleed his victims' hearts.
To India lie goes with glee
For stores of shining, precious stones;
And off to China for his tea,
And Africa for ivory-bones.
The land he takes with gun in hand,
And chains the natives to the heel:
He often used the iron-brand
To mark the slaves that he would steal.
Through Egypt's land he beats the trail,
That leads to blooming cotton fields;
From ship to barge he goes on rail
That brings him on the natives' heels.
The Sudanese, in fields of white,
Must pick the cotton at his will;
Just he alone of all is right
When he at pleasure shoots to kill.
The Congo Basin had its crime,
Of hands chopped off by Leopold,
For rubber wealth, of franc and dime,
The blacks were murdered stiff and cold:
And Cecil Rhodes, in Kimberly,
Did flog the mining natives, too,
That ladies might, at "Wemberly,"
Wear diamonds with the shades of blue,
In Old America of slaves,
John Hawkins did his roaring trade,
For Indians were killed by braves
Who fought like Custus's Brigade.
The blacks were kept in clanking chain,
Two hundred years, and little more:
The Bishops spurred the hellish pain,
And blessed the trips from Afric's shore.
West Indian nights were like the day,
As slaves worked on and on to die.
For sugar and old rum did pay
Much more than barley and the rye.
Great fortunes there were made in sin,
By lords and gentlemen at large,
Whose homes you could not enter in,
Except you sailed in their good barge.
But this, 0 God, is known to you,
So time will bring your message down,
And then from out the azure blue
Shall come the Prince with heaven's crown.
That day shall see the white man gone,
To place in store for cruel man-
For saints of earth were really born
To rise above the murd'rous clan.
-1935