EVENING HYMN IN THE HOVELS.
“We sow the fertile seed and then we reap it;
We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread.
Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it,
While we hunger outside with hearts like lead.
Hallelujah!
“We hew the stone and saw it, rear the city.
Others inhabit there in pleasant ease.
We have no thing to ask of them save pity,
No answer they to give but what they please.
Hallelujah!
“Is it for ever, fathers, say, and mothers,
That we must toil and never know the light?
Is it for ever, sisters, say, and brothers,
That they must grind us dead here in the night?
Hallelujah!
“O we who sow, reap, knead, shall we not also
Have strength and pleasure of the food we make?
O we who hew, build, deck, shall we not also
The happiness that we have given partake?
Hallelujah!”
IN THE STREET.
LORD ----.
You have done well, we say it. You are dead,
And, of the man that with the right hand takes
Less than the left hand gives, let it be said
He has done something for our wretched sakes.
For those to whom you gave their daily bread
Rancid with God-loathed “charity,” their drink
Putrid with man-loathed “sin,” we bow our head
Grateful, as the great hearse goes by, and think.
Yes, you have fed the flesh and starved the soul
Of thousands of us; you have taught too well
The rich are little gods beyond control,
Save of your big God of the heaven and hell.
We thank you. This was pretty once, and right.
Now it wears rather thin. My lord, good night!