Book, The Ghost in the Underblows by Alfred Young Fisher

This is a Book. It was designed by Alvin Lustig. It is dated 1940 and we acquired it in 1993. Its medium is lithography in orange and black ink on off-white wove paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This object was donated by Tamar Cohen. It is credited Gift of Tamar Cohen and Dave Slatoff.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 23.9 x 31.5 cm (9 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.)

It is inscribed

Printed in black ink, left: IV/On nights of justice all bells are still,/At night the fires burn down in hall and street/And revellers cease running up and down./The candles on the judge’s bench burn soft/Showing down aisles like demonic angels’ eyes/Beholding across, the world and days, men./Out of a book as big as any stone/The laws and instructions are given;/Out of a box as big as any cage/The jurors file and then deliberate./Who then stands before the bar?/Who is the shadowy form with shielded eyes/But I?/What are the faces of the spectators?/Balloons on thread strings,/Something like worlds hung out of heaven/With rings on their fingers and bells on their toes,/And that dark form before the prisoner’s bar/Is one who although he does not know/Has folded rock in his head for brains./On days of justice judge and jurors run,/The fires go up in the street and every wintry house/While fools are chosen presidents or kings./The tumbrel rumbles on the cobbles,/Fire burns higher and higher into heaven,/Into the very heart of heaven fire burns,/Burns down to nail and carbon under it./The bells tinkle, hum on the air like tunes/Heard on some telephone wires in the desert./Wheel round all singing morning birds/In circle with the rolling tumbrel wheels/(To equipoise the vertical the horizontal)/And finally before the judge and other fools/The cloaked prisoner stands with his stone head/Like balloons round, as silent and as swaying,/72.

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