Classic Poem

My little sisters, my pretty little sisters,
Dawn upon your cheeks, and stars nestling in your eyes;
Your bodies bathed in the wine unpurchasable;
You flit to the market-place, chattering like children,
Yourselves merchandise,
Precious merchandise from a far country.
Girlish little sisters;
Thoughtless, unafraid.
I have seen innocent, pretty birds
Walk into the trap which destroys them;
Twittering joyously, preening themselves.
Glossy and beautiful, they turn their heads gracefully
Ere they pick up the corn which betrays them.
O, my little sisters, my pretty little sisters.
The Devil's auction.
Daughters of the Poor for sale.
Three dollars a week; three and a half;
Four, five; five and a half.

Sold for five and a half —
The devil laughs and hell rocks with laughter.
Innocent young girls — mothers of the generations
Sold at the Devil's auction:
Eyes more precious than agates,
Chalcedony or sapphires,
Shining pools of the evening,
Wherein the stars dance,
And under the fringe of the border
Runs a liquid moon.
Cheeks more delicate than the wild-rose
Of the canyons;
Bosoms pure as pond-lilies
Swaying on ripples.
Lips dewy as Aurora new-bathed
In the flattery of orient seas.
O my sisters, my trusting little sisters,
Shall you not snatch at roses
Drooping heavy for the picking?
Shall you not walk in poppied paths?
Shall you be hungry and taste not the grapes?
Has our vaunted God baited you for destruction?
I will not shirk my own work upon a pasteboard god.
I have consented and I have approved.
O, my little sisters who should be flowers
Magnificently seeded.
When I walk alone beneath glittering night
I do not see stars but the eyes of the unborn
Staring at me with an implacable demand:
" Must we, too, die not knowing Joy? "
When among leafless trees I hear
The soughing of winter wind,
It is to me the voices of little children
Who have never known childhood.
The sobbing of brooks quarreling to their stones
Is to me the sobbing of mothers cursing motherhood.
The hissing rain is the hot salt rain
Of women's tears,
And the hesitating footsteps of the wind sound to me
As hopes that have died.
The cries of the poor are more melancholy
Than the wail of the curlew at evening.
The crash of imperious ocean is the snarl of Man's law
Which destroys manhood and blights womanhood.
But the roar of the mighty tempest is the fury of those
Who will some day shake their fists against this God.
In the shadow of the desert an army of ghosts,
With twisted limbs and distorted mouths,
Beckons to me,
" How long, Brother, ere you come? "
What I thought were stones are babes, crying:
" How long, Brother, ere you come? "
Even the silent stars menace me.
" You are consenting. "
Nature's desert is clean and the bones of the dead
Shine white as pearls in the sunlight,
But the desert which Man has made
Is filled with dead men's bones rotting in darkness.
And I am consenting.