Classic Poem

When the land is full of workers,
Busy hands and active brains,
When the craftsmen and the thinkers
Feel about them bonding chains;
When the laborer is cheated
Of the worth his hands have wrought,
And the thinker, vain of logic,
Sees that reason comes to naught;
When the forces men have harnessed
And have trained to do their will,
Ought to leave no homeless people,
And no hungry mouths to fill,
Have but proved themselves the servants
Of the shrewd and selfish few,
And the many have but little
For the work they find to do;
When the labor of a million
Goes to swell the gains of one,
As the serfs of ancient Egypt
Starved beneath the burning sun;
When the schemer and the sharper
Hold the wealth and rule the land,
Using up the thinker's brain and force,
Mortgaging the craftsman's hand;
When the many shear the sheep,
And the few secure the wool,
And the gallows claims its victims,
And your costly jails are full—
Then the men who dreamed of progress
And the hopes of peace and bliss,
While they weep and wonder vainly
Ask each other: “Why is this?”
Then the thinker, while confessing
That his vision yet is dim,
Says that one thing very clearly
Is apparent unto him,
That the people, blind or heedless,
Place themselves beneath the rule,
Either of the fiendish knave, or
Worse, perhaps, the sodden fool.