Progress.
The broad advances of material power,1
The onward sweep of intellectual good,2
And nations moving into manhood new3
Through wisdom and authentic civil change—4
O soul-expansive creed ! O faith to stir5
The individual breast with hopes divine,6
And breathe forgetfulness of private wrong !7
But when I asked myself what these have done,8
What failed to do, I felt as if an air,9
Steady and chill, from some waste wilderness,10
Swept cold across the chambers of my heart ;11
For through the heavy multitudinous roll,12
Heard underneath the noises of the hour13
From Life’s dark hollows, as I thought, a cry14
Unheeded, inarticulate, went up,15
Which forcibly found words within my breast :—16
Still we suffer wrongs untold,17
Robbed of peace and joy and health,18
Slowly slain, both young and old,19
For the rich man’s greed of wealth.20
How long shall our hearths lie cold ?21
How long shall our lives be sold ?22
Rise, ye men of nobler mould,23
Say it shall not be for ever !24
Vainly doth the poor man groan,25
Vainly doth he speak his grief.26
“ Work on, till thy days be flown ;27
Seek not, save in death, relief !”28
It is thus they mock his moan,29
While they take from him his own,30
Leaving him the grave alone,31
Where to sleep at rest for ever !32
Shall there not deep vengeance fall33
On the tyrants pitiless,34
Holding cursed festival35
In a people’s heaviness ?36
Vengeance late or soon will fall37
On the oppressors one and all,38
Covering, like a funeral pall,39
These iniquities for ever !40
O would that all men who have eyes to see,41
Who feel the earthquake heaving in its chains,42
Would lay to heart the remedy of things43
Disjointed, ere they perish, and would turn44
Where lies the one hope of the groaning earth !45
Nor will I doubt my country shall find help—46
Not in the selfishness of social war,47
State agitations, and the building up48
A Babel of unripe democracies ;49
But in the charity of man to man ;50
In the acknowledgment of common blood51
Drawn from a common Father ; in the sense52
Of Christ’s desert wherein we all are rich,53
And of our own wherein we all are poor.54
This is that touch of nature which will make55
The whole world kin, and bring “ the golden year.”56
And God be thanked that many to this end57
Are working, by the unfaithful and inert58
Derided, not defeated, and, though faint,59
Pursuing ; the laborious pioneers60
Who point the scope of elemental Right ;61
Who make the rough ways smooth, the crooked straight ;62
Who lift the valleys even with the hills,63
And on a secret anvil, hour by hour,64
Unforge the fetters of Humanity !65