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

(French poet, 1854-1891)

Black in the fog and in the snow,

Where the great air-hole windows glow,

With rounded rumps,

Upon their knees five urchins squat,

Looking down where the baker, hot,

The thick dough thumps.

They watch his white arm turn the bread,

Ere through an opening flaming red

The loaf he flings.