What We Want

All hail the dawn of a new day breaking,
When a strong-armed nation shall take away
The weary burdens from backs that are aching
With maximum labour and minimum pay;
When no man is honoured who hoards his millions;
When no man feasts on another's toil;
And God's poor suffering, striving billions
Shall share His riches of sun and soil.

There is gold for all in the earth's broad bosom,
There is food for all in the land's great store;
Enough is provided if rightly divided;
Let each man take what he needs - no more.
Shame on the miser with unused riches,
Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard,
Who beats down the wage of the digger of ditches,
And steals the bread from the poor man's board.

Shame on the owner of mines whose cruel
And selfish measures have brought him wealth,
While the ragged wretches who dig his fuel
Are robbed of comfort and hope and health.
Shame on the ruler who rides in his carriage
Bought with the labour of half-paid men -
Men who are shut out of home and marriage
And are herded like sheep in a hovel-pen.

Let the clarion voice of the nation wake him
To broader vision and fairer play;
Or let the hand of a just law shake him
Till his ill-gained dollars shall roll away.
Let no man dwell under a mountain of plunder,
Let no man suffer with want and cold;
We want right living, not mere alms-giving;
We want just dividing of labour and gold.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet, born on November 5, 1850, and died on October 30, 1919. She was known for her works expressing optimistic views and moral lessons. Her most famous book was 'Poems of Passion'. Her poem 'Solitude' contains the famous lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone'. Over her career, Wilcox became popularly known as a 'people's poet'.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Nothing But Stones

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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Awakened!

Slowly the People waken; they have been,
Like weary soldiers, sleeping in their tents,
While traitors tiptoed through the silent camp
Intent on plunder.    Suddenly a sound -
A careless movement of too bold a thief -
Starts one dull sleeper; then another stirs,
A third cries out a warning, and at last
The people are awake!    Oh, when as one
The many rise, united and alert,
With Justice for their motto, they reflect
The mighty force of God's Omnipotence.
And nothing stands before them.    Lusty Greed,
Tyrannical Corruption long in power,
And smirking Cant (whose right hand robs and slays
So that the left may dower Church and School),
Monopoly, whose mandate took from Toil
The Mother Earth, that Idleness might loll
And breed the Monster of Colossal Wealth ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Hymn Of The Republic

I have listened to the sighing of the burdened and the bound,
I have heard it change to crying, with a menace in the sound;
I have seen the money-getters pass unheeding on the way,
As they went to forge new fetters for the people day by day.

Then the voice of Labour thundered forth its purpose and its need,
And I marvelled, and I wondered, at the cold dull ear of greed;
For as chimes, in some great steeple, tell the passing of the hour,
So the voices of the people tell the death of purchased power.

All the gathered dust of ages, God is brushing from His book;
He is opening up its pages, and He bids His children look;
And in shock and conflagration, and in pestilence and strife,
He is speaking to the nations, of the brevity of life.

Mother Earth herself is shaken...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voices Of The People

Oh! I hear the people calling through the day time and the night time,
They are calling, they are crying for the coming of the right time.
It behooves you, men and women, it behooves you to be heeding,
For there lurks a note of menace underneath their plaintive pleading.

Let the land usurpers listen, let the greedy-hearted ponder,
On the meaning of the murmur, rising here and swelling yonder,
Swelling louder, waxing stronger, like a storm-fed stream that courses
Through the valleys, down abysses, growing, gaining with new forces.

Day by day the river widens, that great river of opinion,
And its torrent beats and plunges at the base of greed's dominion.
Though you dam it by oppression and fling golden bridges o'er it,
Yet the day and hour advances when in fright you'll flee...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Need Of The World

I know the need of the world,
    Though it would not have me know.
It would hide its sorrow deep,
    Where only God may go.
Yet its secret it can not keep;
It tells it awake, or asleep,
It tells it to all who will heed,
And he who runs may read.
    The need of the world I know.

I know the need of the world,
    When it boasts of its wealth the loudest,
When it flaunts it in all men's eyes,
    When its mien is the gayest and proudest.
Oh! ever it lies - it lies,
For the sound of its laughter dies
In a sob and a smothered moan,
And it weeps when it sits alone.
    The need of the world I know.

I know the need of the world.
    When the earth shakes under the tread
Of men who march to the fight,
    When rivers with blood ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Problem

I.

Not without envy Wealth at times must look
On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook."
And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough
Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam;
All who, by skill and patience, anyhow
Make service noble, and the earth redeem
From savageness. By kingly accolade
Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.
Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain
And evil counsels proffer, they maintain
Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage
No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain
Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain,
And softer pillow for the head of Age.

II.

And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields
Labor its just demand; and well for Ease
If in the uses of its own, it sees
...

John Greenleaf Whittier

What We Need

What does our country need?    No armies standing
    With sabres gleaming ready for the fight;
Not increased navies, skilful and commanding,
    To bound the waters with an iron might;
Not haughty men with glutted purses trying
    To purchase souls, and keep the power of place;
Not jewelled dolls with one another vying
    For palms of beauty, elegance, and grace.

But we want women, strong of soul, yet lowly,
    With that rare meekness, born of gentleness;
Women whose lives are pure and clean and holy,
    The women whom all little children bless;
Brave, earnest women, helpful to each other,
    With finest scorn for all things low and mean;
Women who hold the names of wife and mother
    Far nobler than the title of a queen.

Oh! these are they ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox