 | Songs of Democracy |  |
SONG OF THE FACTORY SLAVE.
The land it is the landlords':
The traders' is the sea;
The ore the usurers' coffer fills,
But what remains for me?
The engine whirls for master's craft,
The steel shines to defend,
With labor's arms, what labor raised,
For labors' foe to spend.
The camp, the pulpit, and the law,
For rich men's sons are free;
Theirs, theirs are learning, art, and arms;
But what remains for me?
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
The traders' is the sea;
The ore the usurers' coffer fills,
But what remains for me?
The engine whirls for master's craft,
The steel shines to defend,
With labor's arms, what labor raised,
For labors' foe to spend.
The camp, the pulpit, and the law,
For rich men's sons are free;
Theirs, theirs are learning, art, and arms;
But what remains for me?
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
I pay for all their learning,
I toil for all their ease;
They render back in coin for coin,
Want, ignorance, disease:—
Toil—toil—and then, a cheerless home,
Where hungry passions cross;
Eternal gain to them, that give
To me eternal loss!
The hour of leisure happiness
The rich alone may see;
The playful child, the smiling wife—
But what remains for me?
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow;
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
I toil for all their ease;
They render back in coin for coin,
Want, ignorance, disease:—
Toil—toil—and then, a cheerless home,
Where hungry passions cross;
Eternal gain to them, that give
To me eternal loss!
The hour of leisure happiness
The rich alone may see;
The playful child, the smiling wife—
But what remains for me?
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow;
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
They render back, those rich men
A pauper's niggard fee,
Mayhap a prison—then a grave,
And think they're quits with me;
But not a fond wife's heart that breaks—
A poor man's child that dies,
We score not on our hollow cheeks
And in our sunken eyes:
We read it there—whene'er we meet,
And as the sum we see,
Each asks—“the rich have got the earth,
And what remains for me?”
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have courage, man
To make that future now.
A pauper's niggard fee,
Mayhap a prison—then a grave,
And think they're quits with me;
But not a fond wife's heart that breaks—
A poor man's child that dies,
We score not on our hollow cheeks
And in our sunken eyes:
We read it there—whene'er we meet,
And as the sum we see,
Each asks—“the rich have got the earth,
And what remains for me?”
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have courage, man
To make that future now.
We bear the wrong in silence,
We store it in our brain;
They think us dull—they think us dead:
But we shall rise again:
A trumpet through the lands will ring;
A heaving thro' the mass;
A trampling thro' their palaces,
Until they break like glass:
We'll cease to weep by cherished graves,
From lonely homes will flee:
And still as rolls our million-march,
Its watchword brave shall be:—
The coming hope—the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
We store it in our brain;
They think us dull—they think us dead:
But we shall rise again:
A trumpet through the lands will ring;
A heaving thro' the mass;
A trampling thro' their palaces,
Until they break like glass:
We'll cease to weep by cherished graves,
From lonely homes will flee:
And still as rolls our million-march,
Its watchword brave shall be:—
The coming hope—the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
| Songs of Democracy | |