Alas, alas, the children! They are seeking Death in life, as best to have. They are binding up their hearts away from breaking With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city; Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do; Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty; Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through. But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows Like our weeds anear the mine? Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, From your pleasures fair and fine. VI "For oh!" say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them, and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping; We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow; For all day we drag our burden tiring, Through the coal-dark, underground; Or all day we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round. VII "For all-day the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,-- All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'" VIII Ay. be silent! Let them hear each other breathing For a moment, mouth to mouth; Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth; Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals; Let them prove their living souls against the notion That they live in you, or tinder you, O wheels! Still all day the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark. IX Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, To look up to Him, and pray; So the blessèd One who blesseth all the others Will bless them another day. They answer, "Who is God, that he should hear us While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word; And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, Hears our weeping any more? X