Classic Poem

But I have no gladness in the coming of day;
For I see an endless procession,
Flowing from life unto death;
Smileless, submissive, starvation-carved, soul-stunted,
Stolidly marching toward the hungry machines,
The clang of hammers and the clank of chains;
The clash and clamour of Industry
And the evil rattle of steel-cranes.
I hear the bellowing of monsters
Which feed on men, belching their black breath against the sky.
Naked men sweat in fires of the damned,
Slaves to the demons which they guide:
Grimy alchemists, with faces wan,
Who dully change dull iron to more sordid gold.
The patient sky above waiting;
The patient men below waiting.
The blue sky above forever listening;
Expectant.
The tired men below forever listening;
Expectant.
An iron world without a soul, forever devouring;
Devouring the men who are mates for mothers;
Fathers, steel-muscled, broad-chested, dominant;
The women, mothers of children, weary mothers;
Crypts of the ages; flexible, undulant;
Innocent children, with white bodies, fluent,
Seeds of the unknowable Future.
Devoured for a soulless profit which in the end
Is damnation. Glorious is creation.
But if justice and joy be lacking
Creation is death.