How do you guard the trust That the people repose in you? Do you keep to the law of the just, And hold to the changeless true? What do you mean when you say "The home of the free and brave"? How free are your people, pray? Have you no such thing as a slave? What are the lauded "rights," Broad-sealed, by your Sovereign Grace? What are the love-feeding sights You yield to your subject race? * * * * * The rights!--Ah! the right to toil, That another, idle, may reap; The right to make fruitful the soil And a meagre pittance to keep! The right of a woman to own Her body, spotlessly pure, And starve in the street--alone! The right of the wronged--to endure! The right of the slave--to his yoke! The right of the hungry--to pray! The right of the toiler--to vote For the master who buys his day! You have sold the sun and the air! You have dealt in the price of blood! You have taken the lion's share While the lion is fierce for food! You have laid the load of the strong On the helpless, the young, the weak! You have trod out the purple of wrong;-- Beware where its wrath shall wreak! "Let the Voice of the People be heard! O----" You strangled it with your rope! Denied the last dying word, While your Trap and your Gallows spoke! But a thousand voices rise Where the words of the martyr fell; The seed springs fast to the Skies Watered deep from that bloody well! * * * * * Hark! Low down you will hear The storm in the underground! Listen, Tyrants, and fear! Quake at that muffled sound! "Heavens, that mocked our dust, Smile on, in your pitiless blue! Silent as you are to us, So silent are we to you! "Churches that scourged our brains! Priests that locked fast our hands! We planted the torch in your chains: Now gather the burning brands! "States that have given us LAW, When we asked for THE RIGHT TO EARN BREAD! The Sword that Damocles saw By a hair swings over your head! "What ye have sown ye shall reap: Teardrops, and Blood, and Hate, Gaunt gather before your Seat, And knock at your palace gate! "There are murderers on your Thrones! There are thieves in your Justice-halls! White Leprosy cancers their stones, And gnaws at their worm-eaten walls! "And the Hand of Belshazzar's Feast Writes over, in flaming light: =Thought's kingdom no more to the Priest; Nor the Law of Right unto Might=." JOHN P. ALTGELD