REMOTE from mansion and from mart, Beyond our outer, furrowed fields — One with the rock he cleaves apart, One with the weary pick he wields — Bowed with his weight of discontent, Beneath the heavens sagging gray, His steaming shoulders stark and bent, He drags his joyless years away. For dreamy dames with haughty eyes, And cunning men with soft white hands Have offered you in sacrifice Lone outcast of the outcast lands. For all the furs that keep them warm, For all the food that keeps them fit, Through all the years they 've wrought you harm, And take a churlish pride in it. Brutish we've hashed it far and near, I've shared your woe and dull despair; We've sung our songs, and none to hear, And told our wrongs, and none to care. Some day — how soon we may not tell — We'll rend the riven fetters free. Till then, may heaven guard you well, And God be good to you — and me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH BY B.R. HAYDON by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE SPIDER AND THE FLY by MARY HOWITT PARADISE LOST: BOOK 4 by JOHN MILTON SONNET: TO SLEEP by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH TO CHILDREN: 6. BIRDS OF THE AIR by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE EMIGRANT LASSIE by JOHN STUART BLACKIE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD RHAPSODY by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE AN INVECTIVE AGAINST THE WORLD, SELECTION by NICHOLAS BRETON |