Classic Poem

1.

Men! ye, who sow the earth with good!
Men! ye who earn the price of food;
Strong Toil, and mightier Skill!
God's Chosen! do his will;
Save from himself man's deadliest foe,
Ere Ruin mock his overthrow,
His life of wrong, his death of shame,
His shroud and grave of blood and flame!
Haste! cry aloud to all, " By good for good men live!
Build not on broken hearts! nor take unless ye give! "

2.

Shall savage drones, in baseness blind,
Breathe plagues, beneath the light of mind?
And curse the foodful soil,
To famish Skill and Toil?
Where grows the vine, the thistle dies;
From cultur'd man the savage flies;
Then, peasant, merchant, artisan,
Transform the biped-brute to man!
Bid truth, bid knowledge turn his mindless night to day!
Bid love and mercy drive the human wolf away!

3.

Men! not allow'd to earn your bread;
Men! feeding all, yourselves half-fed;
Why ask for work in vain?
Or toil for death and pain?
Shall brutal things, in human form,
Feed on your souls like rat and worm?
Say to your wives, " Ye shall not eat? "
Bid son with sire for graves compete?
And mothers kill their babes, in flight from law and life,
Till lawless law become th' assassin's match and knife?

4.

Tool-Making Man! whose foodful mind
With harvest freights the wave and wind,
And thoughtfully creates
The bread and life of states!
Say to the fed on tears and blood,
" Production is the root of good! "
And starve ye them who all produce,
Ye costliest things of smallest use?
Live ye in barren pomp, worst, bloodiest sons of Cain!
To shake your fists at God, and turn his good to bane?

5.

The child, that vainly toils, to aid
Parents, death-doom'd by fetter'd trade;
The sire, whose hopeless son
Lives, but to be undone;
The townsman, paid with less and less:
The homeless thrall of hopelessness;
The peasant, spurn'd, starv'd, hunted, jail'd,
Because his law-made doom prevail'd;
Still shall they feed with pangs the Moloch of the land,
That Rapine o'er crush'd hearts may drive his four-in-hand?

6.

Barbarians, no! in vain ye strive
To keep a world's despair alive:
Your baseness is our might,
Your smitten darkness light:
Mend! ere your crimes set bondage free:
Christ said, Let children come to me!
And shall ye curse the marriage-bed?
No! men shall wed, and babes be fed:
Our daughters shall not bring forth slaves;
Nor childless sons seek workhouse graves!
Nor idlers say to Toil, " Thou shalt not love and live! "
Nor blind brutes say to Skill, " We take, and thou shalt give! "