Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/31

 Because of six faceless men and ten feet of rope and

one corpse dangling unseen in the blackness under

a railroad trestle?

No, I say, no! It swings like a terrible pendulum that

shall soon ring out a mad tocsin and call the red

cock to the crowing.

No, I say, no, for someone will bear witness of this to

the dawn,

Someone will stand straight and fearless tomorrow between

the armed hosts of your slaves, and shout to

them the challenge of that silence you could not

break.

VI.

"BROTHERS—he will shout to them—are you then, the

Godborn, reduced to a mute of dogs

That you will rush to the hunt of your kin at the blowing

of a horn?

Brothers, have then the centuries that created new suns

in the heavens, gouged out the eyes of your soul,

That you should wallow in your blood like swine,

That you should squirm like rats in a carrion,

That you, who astonished the eagles, should beat blindly

about the night of murder like bats?

Are you, brothers, who were meant to scale the stars,

to crouch forever before a footstool,

And listen forever to one word of shame and subjection,

And leave the plough in the furrow, the trowel on the

wall, the hammer on the anvil, and the heart of

the race on the knees of screaming women, and

the future of the race in the hands of babbling children,

29