I AM the people -- the mob -- the crowd -- the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then -- I forget. When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool -- then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. The mob -- the crowd -- the mass -- will arrive then. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MOTHER by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BURIAL by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD by THOMAS MOORE |