And so I ask no man to praise my song, But I would have him build it in his soul; For that great praise would make me glad and strong, And build the poem to a perfect whole. To High-born Poets There comes a pitiless cry from the oppressed-- A cry from the toilers of Babylon for their rest.-- O Poet, thou art holden with a vow: The light of higher worlds is on thy brow, And Freedom’s star is soaring in thy breast. Go, be a dauntless voice, a bugle-cry In darkening battle when the winds are high-- A clear sane cry wherein the God is heard To speak to men the one redeeming word. No peace for thee, no peace, Till blind oppression cease; The stones cry from the walls, Till the gray injustice falls-- Till strong men come to build in freedom-fate The pillars of the new Fraternal State. Let trifling pipe be mute, Fling by the languid lute: Take down the trumpet and confront the Hour, And speak to toil-worn nations from a tower-- Take down the horn wherein the thunders sleep, Blow battles into men--call down the fire-- The daring, the long purpose, the desire; Descend with faith into the Human Deep, And ringing to the troops of right a cheer, Make known the Truth of Man in holy fear; Send forth thy spirit in a storm of song, A tempest flinging fire upon the wrong. The Toilers Their blind feet drift in the darkness, and no one is leading; Their toil is the pasture, where hyens and harpies are feeding; In all lands and always, the wronged, the homeless, the humbled Till the cliff-like pride of the spoiler is shaken and crumbled, Till the Pillars of Hell are uprooted and left to their ruin, And a rose-garden gladdens the places no rose ever blew in, Where now men huddle together and whisper and harken, Or hold their bleak hands over embers that die out and darken. The anarchies gather and thunder: few, few are the fraters, And loud is the revel at night in the camp of the traitors. Say, Shelley, where are you--where are you? our hearts are a-breaking! The fight in the terrible darkness--the shame--the forsaking! The leaves shower down and are sport for the winds that come after; And so are the Toilers in all lands the jest and the laughter Of nobles--the Toilers scourged on in the furrow as cattle, Or flung as a meat to the cannons that hunger in battle. On the Gulf of Night The world’s sad petrels dwell for evermore On windy headland or on ocean floor, Or pierce the violent skies with perilous flights That fret men in their palaces o’ nights, Breaking enchanted slumber’s easeful boat, With shudderings of their wild and dolorous note; They blow about the black and barren skies, They fill the night with ineffectual cries.