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Freedom, yes, but a Freedom combed and curled

A safe, tame Freedom, eating from the hand

A Freedom which will lie down at command

Not this wild wench whose scarlet flag unfurled

Threatens our cozy, comfortable world

With voice like thunder echoing through the land

Who tramps the highway with her ragged band

Of va-nu-pieds from the depths upwhirled.

God save us from her—We’ve no use for kings

Crowns are obnoxious, scepters are taboo

But lawyers, plutocrats, are sacred things.

Touch not the Black Coat, lest you should undo

The very woof of life and fling destroyed

Our spinning earth to chaos and the void.

 

(Originally published in The Liberator, May 1918)