Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | The Man Under the Stone
(From “The Man with the Hoe and other Poems”) |
By Edwin Markham |
| | | WHEN I see a workingman with mouths to feed, | |
| Up, day after day, in the dark before the dawn, | |
| And coming home, night after night, thro’ the dusk, | |
| Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal, | |
| I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an endless steep. | 5 |
| He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch, | |
| Crouched always in the shadow of the rock.… | |
| See where he crouches, twisted, cramped, misshapen! | |
| He lifts for their life; | |
| The veins knot and darken— | 10 |
| Blood surges into his face.… | |
| Now he loses—now he wins— | |
| Now he loses—loses—(God of my soul!) | |
| He digs his feet into the earth— | |
| There’s a movement of terrified effort.… | 15 |
| It stirs—it moves! | |
| Will the huge stone break his hold | |
| And crush him as it plunges to the Gulf? | |
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| The silent struggle goes on and on, | |
| Like two contending in a dream. | 20 | | | |
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