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

Heloise sans Abelard

(A Modern Scholar on a Mediæval Nun)

By Joel Elias Spingarn

(A professor in America’s most prosperous university was discharged for his protests against commercialized education. In the following poem he has paid his respects to his colleagues, likening them to nuns in a convent, and himself to Heloise, who ran away)

In the cool, calm palace of prayer

She sought her haven of dreams;

She gave up her dower of air,

Of stars, and cities, and streams.

On the cold, sweet steps of prayer