The Cry Of The Children

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
            Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers---
            And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
    The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
    The young flowers are blowing toward the west---
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
            They are weeping bitterly!---
They are weeping in the playtime of the others
            In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
            Why their tears are falling so?---
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
            Which is lost in Long Ago---
The old tree is leafless in the forest---
    The old year is ending in the frost---
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest---
    The old hope is hardest to be lost:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
            Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
            In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
            And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
            Down the cheeks of infancy---
'Your old earth,' they say, 'is very dreary;'
    'Our young feet,' they say, 'are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are wearyÑ
    Our grave-rest is very far to seek.
Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
            For the outside earth is cold,---
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
            And the graves are for the old.

'True,' say the young children, 'it may happen
            That we die before our time.
Little Alice died last year---the grave is shapen
            Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her---
    Was no room for any work in the close clay:
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her
    Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
    With your ear down, little Alice never cries!---
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
    For the smile has time for growing in her eyes---
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
            The shroud, by the kirk-chime!
It is good when it happens,' say the children,
            'That we die before our time.'

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
            Death in life, as best to have!
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
            With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city---
    Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do---
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty---
    Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, 'Are your cowslips of the meadows
            Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
            From your pleasures fair and fine!

'For oh,' say the children, 'we are weary,
            And we cannot run or leap---
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
            To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping---
    We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
    The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,
            Through the coal-dark, underground---
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
            In the factories, round and round.

'For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,---
            Their wind comes in our faces,---
Till our hearts turn,---our head, with pulses burning,
            And the walls turn in their places---
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling---
    Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall---
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling---
    All are turning, all the day, and we with all.---
And, all day, the iron wheels are droning;
            And sometimes we could pray,
'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)
            'Stop! be silent for to-day!' '

Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
            For a moment, mouth to mouth---
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
            Of their tender human youth!
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
    Is not all the life God fashions or reveals---
Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
    That they live in you, os