The Singing Man | Page 2

his
bread;
His and his children's bread?--
And the laborer hath none.

This, for his portion now, of all that he hath done.
He earns; and others eat.
He starves;--they sit at meat
Who have
taken away the Sun._
II

Seek him now, that singing Man.
Look for him,
Look for him
In
the mills,
In the mines;
Where the very daylight pines,--
He, who
once did walk the hills!
You shall find him, if you scan
Shapes all
unbefitting Man,
Bodies warped, and faces dim.
In the mines; in the
mills
Where the ceaseless thunder fills
Spaces of the human brain

Till all thought is turned to pain.
Where the skirl of wheel on wheel,

Grinding him who is their tool,
Makes the shattered senses reel

To the numbness of the fool.
Perisht thought, and halting tongue

(Once it spoke;--once it sung!)
Live to hunger, dead to song.
Only
heart-beats loud with wrong
Hammer on,--How long?
... How
long_?--_How long?
Search for him;
Search for him;
Where the crazy atoms swim
Up
the fiery furnace-blast.
You shall find him, at the last,--
He whose
forehead braved the sun,--
Wreckt and tortured and undone.
Where
no breath across the heat
Whispers him that life was sweet;
But the
sparkles mock and flare,
Scattering up the crooked air.
(Blackened
with that bitter mirk,--
Would God know His handiwork?)
Thought is not for such as he;
Naught but strength, and misery;

Since, for just the bite and sup,
Life must needs be swallowed up.

Only, reeling up the sky,
Hurtling flames that hurry by,
Gasp and
flare, with
Why_--_Why,
... Why?...
Why the human mind of him
Shrinks, and falters and is dim
When
he tries to make it out:
What the torture is about.--
Why he breathes,
a fugitive
Whom the World forbids to live.
Why he earned for his
abode,
Habitation of the toad!
Why his fevered day by day
Will
not serve to drive away
Horror that must always haunt:--
...
Want_ ... _Want!
Nightmare shot with waking pangs;--
Tightening
coil, and certain fangs,
Close and closer, always nigh ...
... Why_?...
_Why?
Why he labors under ban
That denies him for a man.
Why his

utmost drop of blood
Buys for him no human good;
Why his utmost
urge of strength
Only lets Them starve at length;--
Will not let him
starve alone;
He must watch, and see his own
Fade and fail, and
starve, and die.

... Why_?... _Why?

Heart-beats, in a hammering song,
Heavy as an ox may plod,

Goaded--goaded--faint with wrong,
Cry unto some ghost of God
...
How long_?... _How long?
.......... How long?
III
Seek him yet. Search for him!
You shall find him, spent and grim;

In the prisons, where we pen
These unsightly shards of men.

Sheltered fast;
Housed at length;
Clothed and fed, no matter how!--

Where the householders, aghast,
Measure in his broken strength

Nought but power for evil, now.
Beast-of-burden drudgeries
Could
not earn him what was his:
He who heard the world applaud
Glories
seized by force and fraud,
He must break,--he must take!--
Both for
hate and hunger's sake.
He must seize by fraud and force;
He must
strike, without remorse!
Seize he might; but never keep.
Strike, his
once!--Behold him here.
(Human life we buy so cheap,
Who should
know we held it dear?)
No denial,--no defence
From a brain bereft of sense,
Any more than
penitence.
But the heart-beats now, that plod

Goaded--goaded--dumb with wrong,
Ask not even a ghost of God

.............
How long?
_When the Sea gives up its dead,
Prison caverns, yield instead
This,
rejected and despised;
This, the Soiled and Sacrificed!
Without

form or comeliness;
Shamed for us that did transgress;
Bruised, for
our iniquities,
With the stripes that are all his!
Face that wreckage,
you who can.
It was once the Singing Man._
IV
Must it be?--Must we then
Render back to God again
This His
broken work, this thing,
For His man that once did sing?
Will not
all our wonders do?
Gifts we stored the ages through,
(Trusting that
He had forgot)--
Gifts the Lord requirèd not?
Would the all-but-human serve!
Monsters made of stone and nerve;

Towers to threaten and defy
Curse or blessing of the sky;
Shafts
that blot the stars with smoke;
Lightnings harnessed under yoke;

Sea-things, air-things, wrought with steel,
That may smite, and fly,
and feel!
Oceans calling each to each;
Hostile hearts, with kindred
speech.
Every work that Titans can;
Every marvel: save a man,

Who might rule without a sword.--
Is a man more precious, Lord?
Can it be?--Must we then
Render back to Thee again
Million,
million wasted men?
Men, of flickering human breath,
Only made
for life and death?
Ah, but see the sovereign Few,
Highly favored, that remain!
These,
the glorious residue,
Of the cherished race of Cain.
These, the
magnates of the age,
High above the human wage,
Who have
numbered and possesst
All the portion of the rest!
What are all despairs and shames,
What the mean, forgotten names

Of the thousand more or less,
For one surfeit of success?
For those dullest lives we spent,
Take these Few magnificent!

For
that host of blotted ones,
Take these glittering central suns.


Few;--but how their lustre thrives
On the million broken lives!

Splendid, over dark and doubt,
For a million souls gone out!
These,
the holders of our hoard,--
Wilt thou not accept them, Lord?
V
Oh, in the wakening thunders of the heart,
--The small lost Eden,
troubled through the night,
Sounds there not now,--forboded and
apart,
Some voice and sword of light?
Some voice and portent of a dawn to
break?--
Searching like God, the ruinous human shard
Of that lost
Brother-man Himself