Page:Adams - Songs of the Army of the Night.djvu/35

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"We sow the fertile seed and then we reap it; We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread. Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it, While we hunger outside with hearts like lead.

"We hew the stone and saw it, rear the city. Others inhabit there in pleasant ease. We have no thing to ask of them save pity, No answer they to give but what they please.

"Is it for ever, fathers, say, and mothers, That we must toil and never know the light? Is it for ever, sisters, say, and brothers, That they must grind us dead here in the night?

"O we who sow, reap, knead, shall we not also Have strength and pleasure of the food we make? O we who hew, build, deck, shall we not also The happiness that we have given partake?

 

You have done well, we say it. You are dead, And, of the the man that with the right hand takes Less than the left hand gives, let it be said He has done something for our wretched sakes. 