Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | A Prayer of the Peoples
(From “The Present Hour”) |
By Percy Mackaye |
(American poet and dramatist, born 1875) |
| | | GOD of us who kill our kind! | |
| Master of this blood-tracked Mind | |
| Which from wolf and Caliban | |
| Staggers toward the star of Man— | |
| Now, on Thy cathedral stair, | 5 |
| God, we cry to Thee in prayer! | |
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| Where our stifled anguish bleeds | |
| Strangling through Thine organ reeds, | |
| Where our voiceless songs suspire | |
| From the corpses in Thy choir— | 10 |
| Through Thy charred and shattered nave, | |
| God, we cry on Thee to save! | |
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| Save us from our tribal gods! | |
| From the racial powers, whose rods— | |
| Wreathed with stinging serpents—stir | 15 |
| Odin and old Jupiter | |
| From their ancient hells of hate | |
| To invade Thy dawning state.… | |
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| Lord, our God! to whom, from clay, | |
| Blood and mire, Thy peoples pray— | 20 |
| Not from Thy cathedral’s stair | |
| Thou hearest:—Thou criest through our prayer | |
| For our prayer is but the gate: | |
| We, who pray, ourselves are fate. | | | | |
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