Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE, by PERCY MACKAYE



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HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They have strewn the burning hearths of man with / darkness and with mire
Last Line: When mothers of men are free.
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): Elections; Human Rights; Justice; Women's Rights; Voting; Voters; Suffrage; Feminism


THEY have strewn the burning hearths of Man with darkness and with mire,
They have heaped the burning hearts of Man with ashes of desire,
Yet from out those hearts and hearths still leaps the quick eternal fire
Whose flame is liberty.

But the flame which once led deathward all the dazzled fighting hordes
Lights them now to living freedom from the bondage of their lords,
And our mothers are uprisen 'mid their sons to wrest the swords
From hands of tyranny.

For the freedom of the laborer is freedom from his toil,
And freedom of the citizen is right to share the soil,
And the freedom of our country is our loosing of the coil
That chokes posterity.

So we who wage our devious wars, in fastness and in fen,
Let us claim our common birthright in the living sun again,
Till the battle of the beasts becomes the reasoning of men,
And joy our destiny.

Let us march then, all together, not because our leaders call,
But at summons of the mighty soul of man within us all,
Men and women, equal comrades, let us storm the nation's wall
And cry "Equality!"

For the vote that brings to woman and to man life's common bread,
Is mightier than the mindless gun that leaves a million dead;
And the rights of Man shall triumph where once men and women bled
When mothers of men are free.





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