Classic Poem

Who are the owners of the soil?
Those that shirk or those that toil?

To-day if some new continent
Illimitable in extent,
'Neath smiling skies inviting-fair,
Were found awaiting the event
Of ultimate man's development —
A virgin land where never share
Had forced its fertile soil to bear;
Where uncut forests stretched away
From sun-dawn to the death of day,
Where mines of silver, coal and gold
Should offer stores of wealth untold,
Where rivers of pent energy
Swep swerving to the circling sea,
And strong men seizing it should say,
" This soil, these mines, these splendid powers
By first discovery's right are ours.
Now no one man or mutual band
Shall claim an acre of this land.
The wealth these ore-brimmed mountains offer
Shall never glut a private coffer,
But as the people may command
Shall build their bridges, lay their roads,
Maintain their colleges and schools,
Shall furnish workmen with their tools,
Shall heat their houses, bear their loads,
Adorn museums with the treasures
Whose worth no money-figure measures;
Shall give old age its ample pension,
Reward of labor or intention;
For every able man shall labor,
No idle drone shall harm his neighbor.

The alien who may cross the seas
To share these vast advantages,
A realm unvext by brute taxation,
Must first acquire an education,
Must ply a useful occupation,
Must swear this order to maintain
Or else his coming is in vain. " —

Would men be happy in this State?
Can they attain the high ideal
And make it actual and real,
Crush out ambition, avarice, hate,
Crime, discord; outmaneuvre Fate
And find Life's satisfying chrysm
In an all-leveling Socialism?

Who knows? As things are now we see
Vast universal misery;
The few unhappy with their wealth,
Seeking pleasure, seeking health;
The many wretched in the slums
And fighting even for the crumbs
Which (as we read in ancient Fable)
Fall to them from the Rich Man's table.
Unrest and covetous discontent
Explosive in men's hearts are pent;
Who have, their riches loudly flaunt;
Who have not, know not what they want.
The laborer strikes at hopeless times,
And desperate takes to dastard crimes,
And Wealth, unjust, unsympathetic.
Crushes nor reads the signs prophetic!

Alas! we never wisely learn.
Experience profits not; we burn
In the same fierce consuming fires
As burnt our grandsires and our sires.
The Pilgrims brought the habitudes,
The feelings, thoughts, ideas, moods
Which ruled them in far distant Kent.
How then could they know what was meant
By this new country unexplored?
The forest where the panther roared
Was hateful to them. Recklessly
They chopt and burnt the noble tree
And wasted the inheritance
Wide as the continent's expanse.
The splendid rivers broad and free,
The cataracts dark with gloom and dread,
The lakes where wild birds dived and bred,
The mountains clothed in majesty,
Were obstacles: they could not know
What wealth from Nature's breasts should flow.
They could not know that Lightning's flame
A modern wizard should entame,
That Fire and Steam's light-bridled forces
Should do the work of myriad horses.
That fountains of subterranean oil
Should from the Earth's veins gush and boil,
Enriching fortunate few with spoil
Which Croesus in his wildest flight
Of avarice never could have craved;
They could not know that men enslaved
Should crown the white-lockt Cotton king,
And on their despot-masters bring
Destruction and a weight of woe
That through the centuries should grow.
They could not know that Liberty
Should be assailed by Anarchy,
And mighty questions should arise
Beyond the wisdom of the Wise.

They were but simple Englishmen,
And lived as we should have lived then.
The great Chance offered: they did not know!
We also should have let it go.
The web of Life age-since begun
With strange unravelings is spun
Like Queen Penelope's, undone
'Twixt sunset and the rising sun.
Its woof is crossed with human souls,
Slow its development unrolls.

We vainly hope and pray may come
The Scriptural Millennium.
The signs and wonders that portend
The Age of Satan soon to end —
The wars and rumors of new wars,
The firmament raining fiery stars,
The rivers into wormwood changed,
The prophets wandering deranged,
The recrudescence of great crimes —
They have been seen a hundred times.
Yet who dares claim we have not progressed?
The slow long way may be the best,
The day may come when men will see
The perfect Soul-democracy.