The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

A South-Sea Islander

By Francis Adams

(English poet and rebel, 1862-1893; his life, a brief struggle with poverty and disease, was ended by his own hand)

Aloll in the warm clear water,

On her back with languorous limbs

She lies. The baby upon her breast

Paddles and falls and swims.

With half-closed eyes she smiles,

Guarding it with her hands;

And the sob swells up in my heart—

In my heart that understands.

Dear, in the English country,

The hatefullest land on earth,

The mothers are starved and the children die

And death is better than birth!