Page:The New Penelope.djvu/336

330 See their hands uplifted in their places—

Hands that toiled for all your boyhood's years?

Can you see your wives and daughters pleading

In the dust you spurn beneath your feet,

Baring hearts for years in secret bleeding,

To the scoffs and jestings of the street?

Can you hear, and yet not heed the crying

Of the children perishing for bread?

Born in fear, not love, and daily dying,

Cursed of God, they think, but cursed of you instead?

Do you hear the women praying, oh my brothers?

Hear the oft-repeated burden of their prayer—

Hear them asking for one boon above all others—

Not for vengeance on the wrongs they have to bear;

But imploring, as their Lord did, "God forgive them,

For they know not what they do;

Strike the sin, but spare the sinners—save them"—

Meaning, oh ye men and brothers, you!

For your heels have ground the women's faces;

You have coined their blood and tears for gold;

Have betrayed their kisses and embraces—

Returned their love with curses twentyfold;

Made the wife's crown one of thorns and not of honor,

Made her motherhood a pain and dread;

Heaped life's toil unrecompensed upon her;

Laid her sons upon her bosom, dead!

Do you hear the women praying, oh my brothers?

Have you not one word to say?

Will a just God be as gentle as these mothers,

If you dare to say them nay?

Oh, ye men, God waits for you to answer

The prayers that to him rise,

He waits to know if you are just ere He is—

There your deliverance lies!