WHO IS TO BLAME?
Who was to blame in that old time
Of the unnoticed groan,
When prisoners without proof of crime
Rotted in dungeons wet with slime,
And died unknown?
When torture was a common thing,
When fire could speak,
When the flayed wretch hung quivering,
And rack-strained tendons, string by string,
Snapped with a shriek?
Is it the Headsman, following still
The laws his masters give?
Is it the Church or King who kill?
Or just the People, by whose will
Church, King, and Headsman live?
The People, bowing slavish knee
With tribute fruits of earth;
The People, gathering to see
The stake, the axe, the gallows-tree,
In brutal mirth!
The People, countenancing pain
By willing presence there;
The People—you might shriek in vain,
Poor son of Abel or of Cain—
The People did not care!
And now, in this fair age we’re in,
Who is to blame?
When men go mad and women sin
Because the life they struggle in
Enforces shame!
When torture is so deep, so wide—
The kind we give—
So long drawn out, so well supplied,
That men die now by suicide,
Rather than live!
Is it the Rich Man, grinding still
The faces of the poor?
Is it our System which must kill?
Or just the People, by whose will
That system can endure?
The People, bowing slavish knee
With tribute fruits of earth;
The People, who can bear to see
In crime and death and poverty
Fair ground for mirth!
The People, countenancing pain
By willing presence there;
The People—you may shriek in vain—
Protest, rebel, beseech, complain—
The People do not care!
Each man and woman feels the weight
Of their own private share;
But for the suffering of the state,
That falls on all men soon or late,
The People do not care!