Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/208

 mud; and the cold which came upon them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the room. They would waken in the midnight hours, when everything was black; perhaps they would hear it yelling outside, or perhaps there would be deathlike stillness—and that would be worse yet. They could feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them with its icy, death-*dealing fingers; and they would crouch and cower, and try to hide from it, all in vain. It would come, and it would come; a grisly thing, a spectre born in the black caverns of terror; a power primeval, cosmic, shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos and destruction. It was cruel, iron-hard; and hour after hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone. There would be no one to hear them if they cried out; there would be no help, no mercy. And so on until morning—when they would go out to another day of toil, a little weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would be their turn to be shaken from the tree.

The Sad Sight of the Hungry

(A poem by the Chinese statesman, 1823-1901; known as the "Bismarck of Asia," and said to have been the richest man in the world)

'Twould please me, gods, if you would spare Mine eyes from all this hungry stare That fills the face and eyes of men Who search for food o'er hill and glen.