Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/39



POET:

In the grim dawn, the miners swarm from their hovels, Lusterless faces, bent backs. And swinging in their hands, tin-buckets, Censers of the God of Gold.

Their faces are patient, as the dog's before his master; Their faces which are blanched so pitiful That the grime upon them is dark, Like the tally-mark of Death. Into the galleries of doom They bear the little torches which are all The sun and moon their long life knows ; And in their souls they bear the little torches Which are all the light their dark life knows ; They go down into the dripping corridors. Into the dark womb of the Earth, their mother ; The mother who devours her children ; Nay, not the Earth, their mother, devours them, But they are devoured of men, their brethren ; They go down into the caverns of the Earth, And sitting on the shoulder of each. Crouching close at his ear, is Death. They rain gold into the laps of their owners Who bask in the sun and breathe the bright air Sifted by the leaves ;

But unto these toilers is tossed only enough Of the spoil of their combat to keep Life's poor, gray smoke ascending.

TRUTH: Revolution ! Revolution !

POET: I cannot hear the roll-call of the woodpecker, Drumming Pan and his little goat-mouthed satyrs From the forest to the orchard. I cannot hear the melancholy note of the cuckoo Hid in the oak-tree, which calls plaintively before the rain,

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