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

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