Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/194

166 The passion and anguish

Of your sisters, your children who languish

Near? Ah, not near—

Far off by the uttermost sea!

Who gave ye your brains to plan—

Your hearts to suffer and bleed?

Why call ye on heaven—

'T is the earth that to you is given!

Plead, ye may plead,

But for man I work through man.

Who gave ye a voice to utter

Your tale to the wind and the sea?

One word well spoken

And the iron gates are broken!

From me, yea, from me

The word that ye will not mutter.

I love not murder but ruth.

Begone from my sight ye who take

The knife of the coward—

Even ye who by heaven were dowered!

Wake ye, O wake,

And strike with the sword of Truth!

Fear ye lest I misprize ye—

I who fashioned not brutes, but men.

After the lightning

And darkness—the dawn's red brightening!

Men! Be ye men!

Lest I who made ye despise ye!"