Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/674

 Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark, underground, Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.

"For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our head, with pulses burning,  And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,  Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,  All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning,  And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)  'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of the angels in their places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,— Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,  And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,  And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper  Than the strong man in his wrath."