TO OTTO BAUER
Who walk upon their feet, Bauer, not upon their knees.
They are not crushed, Bauer.
The corpse upon the barricade-
Behold! is that of the betrayer not the betrayed!
The feet that dangled when the trapdoor clanged
Behold! is of the hangsman not the hanged!
In the ruined gardens of the Karl Marx
Hoi
These dead keep here their final discipline,
The iron front, the last republican defense,
That Heimwehr bullets now have locked them in.
No proclamations on the city's walls repeal,
No parliament can outlaw or suppress,
These unions of the dead, these cadres formed by steel.
You taught them patience, Bauer, to wait, wait,
Until the clock was over-run, the time long past,
Until the hour when they struck, they struck too late.
But in the end these sightless eyes saw clear
Upon the barricade before the machine gun belt ran dry
In that huge moment, in the hot and reeking hour,
They knew at last how gun and hand grenade
Prepare the last great pathway into power!
All honor to them, Bauer! For you
History prepares a shameful grave
A nameless spot buried under weeds and stones
Where creeping jackals shall corne down to howl
Stirred by an ancient kinship with those bones!
But they-they sleep with Communards,
Their brother Spartacists lie at their side,
They marched forth Social Democrats but Bolsheviks they died
I
ALFRED
HAYES
11
