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.
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,
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