There comes a pitiless cry from the oppressed. The light of higher worlds is on thy brow, In darkening battle when the winds are high- No Till blind oppression cease; The stones cry from the walls, Till the gray injustice falls Till strong men come to build in freedom-fate To High-born Poets Let trifling pipe be mute, Take down the trumpet and confront the Hour, Their blind feet drift in the darkness, and no one is leading; Their toil is the pasture, where hyens and harpies are feeding; In all lands and always, the wronged, the homeless, the humbled Till the cliff-like pride of the spoiler is shaken and crumbled, Till the Pillars of Hell are uprooted and left to their ruin, And a rose garden gladdens the places no rose ever blew in, The Toilers Where now men huddle together and whisper and harken, Or hold their bleak hands over embers that die out and darken. The anarchies gather and thunder: few, few are the fraters, And loud is the revel at night in the camp of the traitors. Say, Shelley, where are you-where are you? our hearts are a-breaking! The fight in the terrible darkness-the shame— the forsaking! The leaves shower down and are sport for the winds that come after; And so are the Toilers in all lands the jest and the laughter Of nobles—the Toilers scourged on in the furrow as cattle, Or flung as a meat to the cannons that hunger in battle. The world's sad petrels dwell for evermore Breaking enchanted slumber's easeful boat With shudderings of their wild and dolorous note; There is for them not anything before, But sound of sea and sight of soundless shore, |