Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

For Lyric Labor

Elizabeth Waddell

(Apropos of a remark, attributed to an Italian girl of the Garment Workers’ Union, “It wouldn’t be so bad if they would only let us sing at our work”)

CHILD of the Renaissance, and little sister

Of Ariosto and of Raphael,

If any hush the song within your bosom,

By all your lyric land, he does not well!

One day a traveller from our songless country,

Passing at morning through Saint Mark’s great Square,

Marvelled, from workmen on the campanile,

To hear a song arising on the air.

Marvelled to see those stones of Venice rising

To Labor’s matin chant intoned so clear,

As the great towers builded by Amphion

Rose to the lyre’s strong throbbing, tier on tier.

Give us, O Child, the gifts we lack full sorely—

Give us your heritage of art and song,

The soul that in your fathers grew, sun-nourished,

Soaring above its poverty and wrong.

Of singing vintagers and laughing reapers

Teach us your happy, sunland way, nor we

In blind greed longer lay a stern proscription

Upon your song, O Heart of Italy!

Free and serene, in his reward unstinted,

The workman’s hand shall mould his rhythmic thought;

How candid to the keen-eyed gods’ appraisal

Shall be the work of Song’s great ardor wrought—

When our young land, reborn in Beauty’s image,

Unto the Morn of Prophecy shall come,

And every tower be raised with mirth and music,

And every harvest brought with singing home.