Evening Hymn In The Hovels



'WE sow the fertile seed and then we reap it;
We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread.
Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it,
While we hunger outside with hearts like lead.
Hallelujah!
'We hew the stone and saw it, rear the city.
Others inhabit there in pleasant ease.
We have no thing to ask of them save pity,
No answer they to give but what they please.
Hallelujah!
'Is it for ever, fathers, say, and mothers,
That we must toil and never know the light?
Is it for ever, sisters, say, and brothers,
That they must grind us dead here in the night?
Hallelujah!
'O we who sow, reap, knead, shall we not also
Have strength and pleasure of the food we make?
O we who hew, build, deck, shall we not also
The happiness that we have given partake?
Hallelujah!'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
78

Quick analysis:

Scheme ababCdedeCfgfgChihiC
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 760
Words 150
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams was an essayist poet dramatist novelist and journalist who produced a large volume of work in his short life more…

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    "Evening Hymn In The Hovels" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14011/evening-hymn-in-the-hovels>.

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