The smell of money was always on his hands,
The stink of capital, the sewer he lived in,
The frock-coated squire riding to hounds
Or quaffing champagne in elegant salons;
He would eat up ideas as greedily
As lobster salad, thrill to practical philosophy
As much as a feline mistress’s touch.
The world’s trade passed through him,
From Dixieland cotton plantations
To Lancashire mills,from the slum streets
Of Manchester to India’s hillsides.
He could smell insurrection on the cobbles,
Hear the battle on the barricades;
Science would demand an Aztec hecatomb.
Trim,groomed and vain as a cavalryman,
He grasped the word “freedom” in his hands,
As devotedly as a barber his scissors
Or a servant his master’s Chinese vase.
Never would he lose the North Sea breeze
And the sun-shot waves,exultant voyage
Of a youth pursuing the Golden Fleece!
The faithful brother,ever close at hand,
He shook with the shuttles’ apocalyptic din,
Read the grotesque facts under the skin;
How could others not stand appalled
At the bankruptcy and waste inherent
In their industrial paradise? The Inquisitor
Took up the chair in his darkened court.
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