Which freeborn labors give!

We shall shape a world as a world should be,
With room enough for all.
We will rear a race of the wise and free,
And not of the great and small.
And the heart and the mind of humankind
Shall drink to the dregs of good,
Forgetting the tears of the darker years,
And the curse of bondman's blood.

In vain you soften the voice of greed,
In vain you speak us fair;
The time is late, and we hark nor heed;
In gladness still we dare.
Yield, then, yield to the force we wield,
To the masses of our might;
We are countless strong at the throat of wrong
The warriors of the right!

Yes, we are the captains of the earth
And the warders of the sea--
Of a race new born in nobler birth,
The mighty and the free!
We clasp all hands, to the farthest lands;
We swear by our mother soil,
To take the meed who have done the deed!
Hark to the tongues of toil!

=The Hangman=

The hangman's hands are dyed with blood,
And all they touch or hold
Is stained and streaked with clotted blood
E'en to his bloody gold--
The coins that are paid for human breath
And the lives which he has sold.

In scarlet hue stand old and new--
His clothes, his board, his bed.
There is blood in the cup he lifts up,
And crimson in his bread;
And e'en his floors and walls and doors
Are marked with gory red.

The hangman's face is dull and grey,
And soulless are his eyes;
That he may live from day to day,
Some fellow-being dies.
The tears of the young are naught to him,
Nor ages stifled cries.

He does not know the sob of woe;
Black fear he does not know;
Hardly a word from his lips are heard,
And his ears heed no appeal.
His cruel chin reveals within
A nature hard as steel,
The hangman's thoughts are not of love,
Nor are they yet of hate;
They do not lift themselves above
The dungeon's iron gate;
Their interests are the knotted rope
And the heavy gallows weight.

His mind is filled with the counted killed
And the hope of more to come.
And the price they fling when men must swing,
Which makes a goodly sum;
For his reason waits on the law's black hates,
And, save for this, stands dumb.

The hangman's soul lies stiff and stark.
The hangman's heart is dead;
And the need of friends is a burnt out spark
For he is marked with the murder's mark.
And with blood upon his head.

I