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Because of six faceless men and ten feet of rope and one corpse dangling unseen in the blackness under a railroad trestle?
No, I say, no! It swings like a terrible pendulum that shall soon ring out a mad tocsin and call the red cock to the crowing.
No, I say, no, for someone will bear witness of this to the dawn,
Someone will stand straight and fearless tomorrow between the armed hosts of your slaves, and shout to them the challenge of that silence you could not break.
No, I say, no! It swings like a terrible pendulum that shall soon ring out a mad tocsin and call the red cock to the crowing.
No, I say, no, for someone will bear witness of this to the dawn,
Someone will stand straight and fearless tomorrow between the armed hosts of your slaves, and shout to them the challenge of that silence you could not break.
VI.
"BROTHERS—he will shout to them—are you then, the Godborn, reduced to a mute of dogs
That you will rush to the hunt of your kin at the blowing of a horn?
Brothers, have then the centuries that created new suns in the heavens, gouged out the eyes of your soul,
That you should wallow in your blood like swine,
That you should squirm like rats in a carrion,
That you, who astonished the eagles, should beat blindly about the night of murder like bats?
Are you, brothers, who were meant to scale the stars, to crouch forever before a footstool,
And listen forever to one word of shame and subjection,
And leave the plough in the furrow, the trowel on the wall, the hammer on the anvil, and the heart of the race on the knees of screaming women, and the future of the race in the hands of babbling children,
That you will rush to the hunt of your kin at the blowing of a horn?
Brothers, have then the centuries that created new suns in the heavens, gouged out the eyes of your soul,
That you should wallow in your blood like swine,
That you should squirm like rats in a carrion,
That you, who astonished the eagles, should beat blindly about the night of murder like bats?
Are you, brothers, who were meant to scale the stars, to crouch forever before a footstool,
And listen forever to one word of shame and subjection,
And leave the plough in the furrow, the trowel on the wall, the hammer on the anvil, and the heart of the race on the knees of screaming women, and the future of the race in the hands of babbling children,
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