For Lyric Labor
By Elizabeth Waddell
(Apropos of a remark, attributed to an Italian girl of the Garment Workers’ Union, “It wouldn’t be so bad if they would only let us sing at our work”)
Child of the Renaissance, and little sister
Of Ariosto and of Raphael,
If any hush the song within your bosom,
By all your lyric land, he does not well!
One day a traveller from our songless country,
Passing at morning through Saint Mark’s great Square,
Marvelled, from workmen on the campanile,
To hear a song arising on the air.
Marvelled to see those stones of Venice rising
To Labor’s matin chant intoned so clear,
As the great towers builded by Amphion
Rose to the lyre’s strong throbbing, tier on tier.
Give us, O Child, the gifts we lack full sorely—
Give us your heritage of art and song,
The soul that in your fathers grew, sun-nourished,
Soaring above its poverty and wrong.
Of singing vintagers and laughing reapers
Teach us your happy, sunland way, nor we
In blind greed longer lay a stern proscription
Upon your song, O Heart of Italy!
Free and serene, in his reward unstinted,
The workman’s hand shall mould his rhythmic thought;
How candid to the keen-eyed gods’ appraisal
Shall be the work of Song’s great ardor wrought—
When our young land, reborn in Beauty’s image,
Unto the Morn of Prophecy shall come,
And every tower be raised with mirth and music,
And every harvest brought with singing home.
By Isaiah
The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities.