The Survey, Volume 30, Number 5, May 3, 1913Various
History
The Survey, Volume 30, Number 5, May 3, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
Then the dead one passed away in the air with cries:
“You will pay for it yet! And he clenched his fist and
threatened the world.”
The poet’s love for nature, the human longing of the worker
imprisoned in the city for the country, which he has known but
which is now beyond his reach, is expressed in the nightingale’s
challenge to the laborer:
“Summer is here, summer is here! I shall not sing to you
eternally, for finally my hour too will strike—a dark crow will
occupy my branch, the holy song will cease. How long must I sing
to you from the tree of the golden dream of freedom and love?
Rise and let me not urge you any longer! The heaven will not
remain eternally blue! Summer is here, summer is here! Now one
can pass a merry time, for just like you who are fading at your
machine, everything will in the end wither and be carried away.”
The Nightingale illustrates, as Professor Wiener points out, the
poet’s command over poetic form as well as poetic thought. Even in
the English prose translation we can feel the repetition of notes,
the intricate weaving of melody in the bird’s song.
Another poem which is an example of the same power of combining
matter and manner is that drama of the garment worker’s lift, The
Sweatshop, which deserves to be quoted in full:
THE SWEAT SHOP
The machines in the shop roar so wildly that often I forget in
the roar that I am; I am lost in the terrible tumult, my ego
disappears, I am a machine. I work and work and work without
end. I am busy and busy and busy at all time. For what and for
when? I know not, I ask not! How should a machine ever come to
think?
There are no feelings, no thoughts, no reason; the bitter bloody
work kills the noblest, the most beautiful and best, the
richest, the deepest, the highest, which life possesses. The
seconds, minutes and hours fly; the nights like the days pass as
swiftly as sails; I drive the machine just as if I wished to
catch them; I chase without avail, I chase without end.
The clock in the workshop does not rest; it keeps on pointing
and ticking and waking in succession. A man once told me the
meaning of its pointing and waking—that there was a reason in
it; as if through a dream I remember it all; the clock awakens
life and sense in me, and something else—I forget what; ask me
not, I know not, I know not, I am a machine!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account