WHAT cometh here from west to east a-wending? And who are these, the marchers stern and slow? We bear the message that the rich are sending Aback to those who bade them wake and know. @3Now one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, But one and all if they would dusk the day.@1 We ask'd them for a life of toilsome earning, They bade us bide their leisure for our bread; We crav'd to speak to tell our woeful learning: We come back speechless, bearing back our dead. They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken; They turn their faces from the eyes of fate; Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken. But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate. Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison; Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest; But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen Brings us our day of work to win the best. @3Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, But one and all if they would dusk the day.@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPECIMEN OF AN INDUCTION TO A POEM by JOHN KEATS THE LEADEN-EYED by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY GOD'S WORLD by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF MEZERAY'S HISTORY OF FRANCE by MATTHEW PRIOR LINES by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS OH, TORTURE NOT MY SOUL! by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS CONCLUDING VERSES, AFTER RETURNING HOME FROM AN AUTUMNAL MORNING WALK by BERNARD BARTON |