“There’s a serf whose chains are of paper; there’s a king with a parchment crown,
There are robber knights and brigands in factory, field and town;
But the vassal pays his tribute to a lord of wage rent;
And the baron’s toll is Shylock’s, with a flesh and blood per cent.
“The seamstress bends to her labor all night in a narrow room,
The child, defrauded of childhood, tiptoes all day at the loom,
The soul must starve, for the body can barely on husks be fed;
And the loaded dice of a gambler settle the price of bread.
“Ye have shorn and bound the Samson, and robbed him of learning’s light;