Do we forget them, these broken ones,
That our watch to-night is set?
Nay, we smile in the face of the year that comes
Because we do not forget.
We do not forget the tramp on the track,
Thrust out in the wind-swept waste,
The curses of Man upon his back,
And the curse of God in his face.
The stare in the eyes of the buried man
Face down in the fallen mine;
The despair of the child whose bare feet ran
To tread out the rich man's wine;
The solemn light in the dying gaze
Of the babe at the empty breast,
The wax accusation, the sombre glaze
Of its frozen and rigid rest;
They are all in the smile that we turn to the east
To welcome the Century's dawn;
They are all in our greeting to Night's high priest,
As we bid the Old Year begone.
Begone and have done, and go down and be dead
Deep drowned in your sea of tears!
We smile as you die, for we wait the red
Morn-gleam of a hundred-years
That shall see the end of the age-old wrong,—
The reapers that have not sown,—
The reapers of men with their sickles strong
Who gather, but have not strown.
For the earth shall be his and the fruits thereof
And to him the corn and wine,
Who labors the hills with an even love
And knows not "thine and mine."
And the silk shall be to the hand that weaves,
The pearl to him who dives,
The home to the builder; and all life's sheaves
To the builder of human lives.
And none go blind that another see,
Or die that another live;
And none insult with a charity
That is not theirs to give.