Life, 1910-02-03 · page 19 of 44
Life — February 3, 1910 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a serious poem rather than satire or political cartoon. "Ballade of Victory" by Rem. A. Johnston is a religious allegory about divine justice and redemption. The poem imagines an afterlife where God creates a sanctuary for society's rejected and failed—slaves, heretics, executed prisoners (likely referencing Joan of Arc and Bruno), prostitutes, and the nameless masses killed in conflict (Thermopylae). The refrain emphasizes that these outcasts achieve equality and liberation through God's charity. The accompanying dark, dramatic illustration shows figures in anguish or reverence, suggesting spiritual transcendence. The poem's message is progressive for its era: it advocates that the lowly and disgraced deserve divine mercy equal to the privileged, and that their earthly suffering finds redemption in heaven. This reflects early 20th-century social consciousness about inequality and injustice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ballade of- Victory EYOND the Gates of the Gardens of Khan, That lie in the limits of Tartary, Beyond the Cross of the Son of Man, On the red, wet slope of Calvary, All a cycle before the Axe and the Tree, From a world of light by our dim dreams veiled, ‘The Lord God 'stablished His Mystery— A Land for the Souls of His Sons who failed! Yea, a Place He made for the slaves of ban, And for those who fell by the priests’ decree, And one for the hunger-pinched courtesan, Who to suckle her babe sold her purity; And equal they were in the same degree— The scourged and the scorned, the beaten and jailed— When the Lord God founded His Charity, A Land for the Souls of His Sons who failed! A few who came there when the world began Had names, but the many from names were free, And whether ’twas Christ or poor Joan, Bruno or Brown, or them that be Ground into dust at ‘Thermopylz, ‘They put them away with all they entailed, When the Lord God awarded in victory A Land for the Souls of His Sons who failed! L’ENVOI. Ship of Success, on Failure’s gray sea, Oh, These, the Nameless, calked holes as you sailed, Till the Lord God gave them their liberty— A Land for the Souls of His Sons who failed! Rem. A. Johnston. comicbooks.com