Classic Poem

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west —
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly —
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

" For oh," say the children, " we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap —
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
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 droppeth down 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 today! " "

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their angels in their places,
With eyes meant for 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 mail'd heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,
And your purple shows your path;
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath!"