Classic Poem

All down the ages comes a cry of anguish,
Where workers toil and sweat without release,
That others may grow rich the while they languish
In poverty and pain till life shall cease
Always a cry of men in desperation,
Of women, ay, and children, stung beneath
The slaver's whip — the chain, the scanty ration,
The goad of hunger, and the fear of death.

Always the Land, the one means of existence,
Snatched from the peasant-folk by guile and force;
Always brave hearts of manhood and resistance
Crushed by machine-like Law without remorse;
Always the seamstress in her attic dreary,
The miner in his murky tomb immured,
The factory hand, the clerk — ill, worn and weary —
By those for whom they toil, unknown, ignored.

Ah yes! and always through the strife and tangle,
Through all the cries and counsels of despair,
A music heard that silences the jangle,
A rising chord of Hope that fills the air.
Always the song — despite the world's derision
Of suffering hearts that welded into one,
In dream prophetic, self-fulfilling vision,
Of days to be — the City of the Sun

Always of things unseen one surest token —
Their deep foundation in the human breast;
The words, now dark within, that shall be spoken —
Freedom and Comradeship from East to West.
Always from weakness a new strength emerging,
From sorrow shared a greater ecstasy;
Always the common soul and purpose urging
To Life and Love and Power and Victory.