Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | | Pittsburgh |
By James Oppenheim |
(American poet and novelist; born 1882) |
| | | OVER his face his gray hair drifting hides his Labor-glory in smoke, | |
| Strange through his breath the soot is sifting, his feet are buried in coal and coke. | |
| By night hands twisted and lurid in fires, by day hands blackened with grime and oil, | |
| He toils at the foundries and never tires, and ever and ever his lot is toil. | |
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| He speeds his soul till his body wrestles with terrible tonnage and terrible time, | 5 |
| Out through the yards and over the trestles the flat-cars clank and the engines chime, | |
| His mills through windows seem eaten with fire, his high cranes travel, his ingots roll, | |
| And billet and wheel and whistle and wire shriek with the speeding up of his soul. | |
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| Lanterns with reds and greens a-glisten wave the way and the head-light glares, | |
| The back-bent laborers glance and listen and out through the night the tail-light flares— | 10 |
| Deep in the mills like a tipping cradle the huge converter turns on its wheel | |
| And sizzling spills in the ten-ton ladle a golden water of molten steel. | |
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| Yet screwed with toil his low face searches shadow-edged fires and whited pits, | |
| Gripping his levers his body lurches, grappling his irons he prods and hits, | |
| And deaf with the roll and clangor and rattle with its sharp escaping staccato of steam, | 15 |
| And blind with flame and worn with battle, into his tonnage he turns his dream. | |
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| The world he has builded rises around us, our wonder-cities and weaving rails, | |
| Over his wires a marvel has found us, a glory rides in our wheeled mails, | |
| For the Earth grows small with strong Steel woven, and they come together who plotted apart— | |
| But he who has wrought this thing in his oven knows only toil and the tired heart. | 20 | | | |
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