Page:When the Leaves Come Out (Chaplin 1917).pdf/22

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It seems the sight of your black deeds would daily haunt your mind,
The bodies that you rob and wreck, the souls you warp and grind;
But you grow greedier each day—more ravening and blind.

In spite of ceaseless golden streams that in your coffers pour—
More wealth than you can use or waste—you clamor still for gore;
You gouge and squeeze and clutch and scream for more and more and MORE.

Your narrow eyes see but the "game," your mouth is hard with sneers.
The only time you'll feel the touch of human woe and tears
Is when the sudden cyclone roars around your very ears.

You boasted, swollen with your pride, "I am because I am";
You flashed the scrawls that made you great—your printed paper sham;
Take one long loving look at them; they are not worth a damn!

They do not mean a thing to us; our hate-forged strength is sweet,
And all your "holy" codes and "laws" we trample with our feet;
Not all your lawyers, soldiers, priests can save you from defeat.

For you're a loathsome outlawed thing—a greed-fanged parasite,
An enemy of humankind without a single "right"—
The stolen plunder that you prize is ours to take on sight.

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