Classic Poem

Let us watch miners creeping out of their hovels
As rats from their holes — the grime of yesterday
Unwashed from lustreless faces;
Battered tin buckets swing in their hands,
Their faces patient as a dog's before his master,
Blanched so pitiful that the smut upon them
Is dark, like the tally-mark of Death.
Into rayless galleries they bear feeble torches,
All the sun and moon their poor life knows;
And in their souls they bear feeble torches,
All the light their poor souls know.
The sun forsakes them as they go down into
The dripping corridors,
And sitting on the shoulder of each,
Crouching close at his ear, is — Death.
They rain gold into their owners' laps.
Their Masters bask in the sun
And breathe the bright air
Sifted by the leaves,
But to the toilers they toss only enough
Of the spoil of their own combat
To keep Life's thin, grey smoke ascending.
If the desperate souls rebel,
They are shot down by machine-guns worked
By professional assassins hired by the Master.
Yet this is not war — this is peace.
The peace of a great Republic, of wonderful " Patriots. "
The peace that brings the death of a people.
The dull crowd applauds the slaughter.
Presently it will be their turn — for the wheel
Of God never ceases.