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| “WE have made them fools and weak!” said the Strong Ones: | |
| “We have bound them, they are dumb and deaf and blind; | |
| We have crushed them in our hands like a heap of crumbling sands, | |
| We have left them naught to seek or find: | |
| They are quiet at our feet!” said the Strong Ones; | 5 |
| “We have made them one with wood and stone and clod; | |
| Serf and laborer and woman, they are less than wise or human!——” | |
| “I shall raise the weak!” saith God. | |
| |
| “They are stirring in the dark!” said the Strong Ones, | |
| “They are struggling, who were moveless like the dead; | 10 |
| We can hear them cry and strain hand and foot against the chain, | |
| We can hear their heavy upward tread.… | |
| What if they are restless?” said the Strong Ones; | |
| “What if they have stirred beneath the rod? | |
| Fools and weak and blinded men, we can tread them down again——” | 15 |
| “Shall ye conquer Me?” saith God. | |
| |
| “They will trample us and bind!” said the Strong Ones; | |
| “We are crushed beneath the blackened feet and hands; | |
| All the strong and fair and great they will crush from out the state; | |
| They will whelm it with the weight of pressing sands— | 20 |
| They are maddened and are blind!” said the Strong Ones; | |
| “Black decay has come where they have trod; | |
| They will break the world in twain if their hands are on the rein—” | |
| “What is that to me?” saith God. | |
| |
| “Ye have made them in their strength, who were Strong Ones, | 25 |
| Ye have only taught the blackness ye have known: | |
| These are evil men and blind?—Ay, but molded to your mind! | |
| How shall ye cry out against your own? | |
| Ye have held the light and beauty I have given | |
| Far above the muddied ways where they must plod: | 30 |
| Ye have builded this your lord with the lash and with the sword— | |
| Reap what ye have sown!” saith God. | |
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