Florence Kiper Frank

A Girl Strike-Leader


Published: The Cry For Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest, ed. by Upton Sinclair, John C. Winston Co., 1915.
Transcribed: for marxists.org in January, 2002.


A white-face, stubborn little thing
Whose years are not quite twenty years,
Eyes steely now and done with tears,
Mouth scornful of its suffering--

The young mouth!--body virginal
Benenth the cheap, ill-fitting suit,
A bearing quaintly resolute,
A flowering hat, satirical.

A soul that steps to the sound of the fife
And banners waving red to war,
Mystical, knowing scarce wherefore--
A Joan in a modern strife.