Classic Poem

Not always shall the good earth be
To man's use under ban;
The land shall be redeemed at last
And rendered back to man:
Then each shall of the acres hold
Enough to make him free;
None shall usurp more than his need,
And none shall landless be.

The system of old feudal wrong
That makes the people pay
For room to live upon the earth
Shall fade and fall away;
The name of landlord shall become
A mockery and scoff,
As rolls the tide of human rights
To sweep his landmarks off.

For man shall yet perceive the truth—
Through old tradition dim—
That record, scroll, nor parchment writ
Can take the earth from him;
That nature makes a title-deed
To each one for his time
In his own want, and who takes more
He perpetrates a crime.

This living truth shall flush the cheek
Of pale Starvation red,
As over old ancestral parks
The pauper's sheaves are spread;
This truth shall wrest from blood and birth
The scepter and the crown,
And, leveling the Workers up,
The Drones shall level down.

Then prince and peasant side by side
Shall strive, with heart and brain,
By doing highest work for man
The highest rank to gain;
For, when each has his human right
Of home upon the soil,
The Worker shall be prince and king—
God's Nobleman of Toil!

Glad time of earth's beatitude!
When none shall hoard or steal,
But all mankind together work
For universal weal;
When war no more shall shock the land
Or thunder on the sea,
But by the Golden Rule of Christ
All wrongs shall righted be.