Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Before a Crucifix

Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Algernon Charles Swinburne

(English poet of nature and liberty, 1837–1909)

HERE, down between the dusty trees,

At this lank edge of haggard wood,

Women with labor-loosened knees,

With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,

Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare

Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains

Striped gray this piteous God of theirs;

The face is full of prayers and pains,

To which they bring their pains and prayers;

Lean limbs that shew the laboring bones,

And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.

God of this grievous people, wrought

After the likeness of their race,

By faces like thine own besought,

Thine own blind helpless, eyeless face,

I too, that have nor tongue nor knee

For prayer, I have a word to thee.

It was for this then, that thy speech

Was blown about the world in flame

And men’s souls shot up out of reach

Of fear or lust or thwarting shame—

That thy faith over souls should pass

As sea-winds burning the grey grass?

It was for this, that prayers like these

Should spend themselves about thy feet,

And with hard overlabored knees

Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat

Bosoms too lean to suckle sons

And fruitless as their orisons?

It was for this, that men should make

Thy name a fetter on men’s necks,

Poor men made poorer for thy sake,

And women withered out of sex?

It was for this, that slaves should be,

Thy word was passed to set men free?

The nineteenth wave of the ages rolls

Now deathward since thy death and birth.

Hast thou fed full men’s starved-out souls?

Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?

Or are there less oppressions done

In this wild world under the sun?

Nay, if indeed thou be not dead,

Before thy terrene shrine be shaken,

Look down, turn usward, bow thine head;

O thou that wast of God forsaken,

Look on thine household here, and see

These that have not forsaken thee.

Thy faith is fire upon their lips,

Thy kingdom golden in their hands;

They scourge us with thy words for whips,

They brand us with thy words for brands;

The thirst that made thy dry throat shrink

To their moist mouths commends the drink.…

O sacred head, O desecrate,

O labor-wounded feet and hands,

O blood poured forth in pledge to fate

Of nameless lives in divers lands,

O slain and spent and sacrificed

People, the grey-grown speechless Christ!

Is there a gospel in the red

Old witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds?

From thy blind stricken tongueless head

What desolate evangel sounds

A hopeless note of hope deferred?

What word, if there be any word?

O son of man, beneath man’s feet

Cast down, O common face of man

Whereon all blows and buffets meet,

O royal, O republican

Face of the people bruised and dumb

And longing till thy kingdom come!…

The tree of faith ingraft by priests

Puts its foul foliage out above thee,

And round it feed man-eating beasts

Because of whom we dare not love thee;

Though hearts reach back and memories ache,

We cannot praise thee for their sake.…

Nay, if their God and thou be one,

If thou and this thing be the same,

Thou shouldst not look upon the sun;

The sun grows haggard at thy name.

Come down, be done with, cease, give o’er;

Hide thyself, strive not, be no more.