Classic Poem

I

What strange awakening shape is this —
What is his breed, his genesis?
Peer into the past: from every age
His visage stares in silent rage.
Down the long centuries he came ...
Who is he? Ask the sands his name.
Who is he? Ask the leaves that die,
And have no language but a sigh.
Ask the gray fields he plowed for bread
To feed the nations — he, unfed.
Ask the slow vultures as they wheel
Over the battles for a meal.

II

Behold, he is the Toiling Man,
Unresting since the world began.
What blind road has he come to this —
Out of what darkness, what abyss?
Grinding grim blocks in ages gone,
His groans gave Greece the Parthenon:
Out of the deeps of his despair,
The Colosseum whirled in air.
Back somewhere in the night of years,
The bricks of Babel felt his tears.
Back in the ages, stooped with loads,
Silent to curses and to goads,
With panting mouth and sullen lids,
He piled the monstrous Pyramids.
Yea, staggering under stripes and scars,
He heaved huge Cheops to the stars.
The Memphian Sphinxes in their day
Saw him go by as still as they.
And on all roads he ever trod
His silence was his cry to God.

He built and beautified the cities —
Gardens where rhymers thrummed their ditties;
Mansions where lolled the idling host,
Whose god is he that idles most;
Temples where pontiffs lit a flame
To gods that winked at all the shame.
His brute hands lifted into air
Bright Babylon, and held her there.
Yea, out of grief and reeking grime,
He lifted cities into Time —
Lifted their mighty splendors high,
And held them glittering in the sky.

III

So in those hands he held the fate
Of empires — carried their doom and date —
The power to wreck the guarded thrones
And leave the world a plain of stones.
Yea, there was strength in that huge girth
To flatten out the belly of earth:
In those bowed shoulders was the might
To draw down whirlwind and the night.
Yet he toiled humbly in all lands,
The fate of nations in his hands —
Toiled at his all-bestowing task,
And why he toiled he did not ask.
He let the centuries go by
Without a word, without a cry.
The stones were silent on the way,
And he groped on as still as they.

IV

Behold, O world, the Toiling Man,
Bearing earth's burden and her ban.
Because of his all-giving grace,
Kaisers and kings have held their place —
Because he gave ungrudging toil,
The Lords have had the world for spoil —
Because he gave them all his dower,
Great ladies glittered out their hour.
He clothed these paupers, gave them bed,
Put into their mouths their daily bread.
And his reward? A crust to taste,
An unknown grave upon the waste.
Outcast and cursed, befooled and flayed,
With earth's brute burdens on him laid,
He only reached out humble hands,
Reached out his mercies on all lands.
How silent down the world he trod —
How patient he has been with God!