Crie du Coeur

A child goes to sleep hungry, And cold suited men say It is necessary and logical, And the heart cries at their callousness. A country sits in poverty, Its riches flowing steadily Overseas, away From the huts and favelas Into the hands of cold-eyed men Muttering of market-mechanisms, And the heart cries To see such squalor and greed. A people seethes in memory Of a long-past atrocity; another Looks yearningly at yesterday’s homeland, Now quashed under lost battles. Gray voices, paper voices, reasonable voices Counsel forgiveness, reform, Stability—and the heart cries To see great crimes going unpunished. Men hear the cry of the heart In increasing numbers: The gray, drawn faces of reason Now like hobgoblins appear, Stooped over the suffering body Of all mankind, like tormentors Of all hearts—and all see clear What must be done. And so there is a stirring in those In whom the heart-cry has torn Deep tunnels of sympathy, And its cry then becomes the cry Of the many. Inflamed with justice They storm the heart’s prison-tower, And free it—carrying it high At the head of their victory-columns, Painting themselves in its red righteousness, Ecstatic in the heart’s New sincerity, its glorious promise, Finally—the heart flies free. Yet now, at last unshackled, the wronged heart now cries—what? A new cry. For what, this new keening? Does it think its freedom not spacious, Its victory too middling? No, the liberated heart’s new cry Is for murder: it cries to paint The world in blood, in the blood Of all the reasonable men. The heart, you see Is not just tenderness, Nor always is it just, Nor holds it only Kindly compassion: The heart is a fiery blood-bomb, A jungle-thrumming savage, Tender and seductive When under constraint, It is no less ruthless when released; It resonates hate no less than love. To forgive, forbear Is not the heart’s natural way, But a gift patiently taught That the jungle soon enough gnaws through. To seek peace and love Is not born to it either, But also is a gift, easily melted By resentment’s fuming oleum. And so a heart that cries For injustice and sorrow Will just as soon the next day Cry down blood, slaughter, mayhem, Upon its neighbor, endlessly, A cataract of red nectar, It will pour down death Like indiscriminate Medicine: A heart that cries only for justice Will show none itself. So God help us when the heart-cry Goes keening through the world, For when men turn to it, lured By its vengeful music, they soon forget That grace is not to be found In the heart’s desires, but only In that which survives them.