I have seen tall chimneys without smoke,
And I have seen blank windows without blinds,
And great dead wheels, and motors without minds,
And vacant doorways grinning at the joke.

I have seen loaded wagons creak and sway
Along the roads into the North and East,
Each dragged by some great-eyed and starving beast
To God knows where, but just away — away.

And I have heard the wind awake at nights
Like some poor mother left with empty hands,
Go whimpering in the silent stubble lands
And creeping through bare houses without lights.

These comforts only have I for my pain —
The frantic laws of statesmen bowed with cares
To feed me, and the slow, pathetic prayers
Of godly men that somehow it shall rain.