Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A TRUST OF BUYERS, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A TRUST OF BUYERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Robed with might on seas and lands
Last Line: In the triumph of the just!
Subject(s): Brotherhood


Robed with might on seas and lands,
Lo, the conquering merchant-bands!
Not a commerce so august
But is mastered by a trust.
Not a traffic second-rate
But a trust has made it great.
Whiskey, matches, ships, and meat,
Things to wear and things to eat,
Schoolbooks, ice, molasses, screws,
Things to play with and to use,
Common things and superfine,
Each is in some vast combine.
We shall make them, if we must,
At the wages of the trust.
We shall buy them, fall or rise,
At the trust's imperial price.
We may swallow for our food
What the trust considers good,
And obediently wear
Just the clothes the trust can spare.
This -- until the buyers learn
To amalgamate in turn;
This -- until we boldly choose
To confederate those that use.

Once, in Boston, men were free
For a certain sport with tea.
Better cereal coffee, then,
And retain the rights of men!
Naught is a "necessity,"
Bought with price of liberty.
Men whose wills and hearts are stout
Gladly learn -- to do without.

Let us, mediocre folk,
Break the chain and smash the yoke.
Trusts and corners, low and high,
All are naught -- unless we buy.
Let us match their money-lust
With a monster anti-trust.
Let us quietly declare:
"If the seller is unfair,
If his workmen, underfed,
Cry for justice and for bread,
If his prices he shall fix
Not by nature but by tricks --
Till his heart or courage melts,
We will live on something else!
And the money thus we save,
His poor laborers shall have."
Thus the rich whose wealth is made
Worthily by worthy trade,
Thus the toiling poor that lie
In a hopeless slavery,
Brothers, made of common dust,
Both shall prosper from one trust!

Crude? quixotic? juvenile?
Call the notion what you will,
Only know that not for aye
Shall the few the many sway;
Only know that brotherhood
Is omnipotent for good,
And that men may safely -- trust --
In the triumph of the just!





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