"_Free labourers_, if you will. We use that word instead. "The 'dignity of labour' ye shall learn for hire. "No paltering. No excuse. The white man hates a liar, "And hates a grumbling hand. Enough if we provide "Tools with the drink and leave your backs with a whole hide. "These lands are ours by Charter. If you doubt it, bring "Your case before the Courts, which will expound the thing. "As for your women folk. Look, there are ways well known "All women have of living in a Christian town. "Moreover you do ill. One wife the law allows, "And you, you say, have four. Send three round to our house." --Thus is Thy gospel preached. Its issue, Lord, behold In the five Continents, the new world and the old. The happier tribes of Man despoiled, enslaved, betrayed To the sole white Man's lust, husband and wife and maid. Their laughter drowned in tears, their kindness in mad wrath, Their dignity of joy in a foul trance of death, Till at the last they turn and in their anguish rend. Then loud the cry goeth forth, the white man's to each friend: "Help! Christians, to our help! These black fiends murder us." And the last scene is played in death's red charnel house. The Saxon anger flames. His ships in armament Bear slaughter on their wings. The Earth with fire is rent, And the poor souls misused are wiped from the world's face In one huge imprecation from the Saxon race, In one huge burst of prayer and insolent praise to Thee, Lord God, for Thy high help and proved complicity. Nay Lord, 'tis not a lie, the thing I tell Thee thus. Their bishops in their Churches lead, incredulous, The public thanks profane. They sanctify the sword-- "Te Deum laudamus. Give peace in our time, O Lord." Hast Thou not heard their chanting? Nay, Thou dost not hear, Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand like lightning in the clear To smite their ribald lips with palsy, these false priests, These Lords who boast Thine aid at their high civic feasts, The ignoble shouting crowds, the prophets of their Press, Pouring their daily flood of bald self-righteousness, Their poets who write big of the "White Burden." Trash! The White Man's Burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash. --There. Thou hast heard the truth. Thy world, Lord God of Heaven, Lieth in the hands of thieves who pillage morn and even. And Thou still sleepest on! Nay but Thou needs must hear Or abdicate Thy name of High Justiciar Henceforward and for ever. It o'erwhelmeth Thee With more than temporal shame. Thy silence is a Sea Crying through all the spheres in pain and ceasing not As blood from out the ground to mark crime's murder spot: "There is no hope--no truth. He hath betrayed the trust. "The Lord God is unjust. The Lord God is unjust." (_A cry without._) This is their cry in Heaven who give Thee service true. Arise, Lord, and avenge as was Thy wont to do. (_The Angels re-enter in disorder, weeping_). THE LORD GOD