lue sky-slope,
And base it deep as devils grope,
When all's done what hast thou won
Of the only sweet that's under the sun?
Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh
Of true love's least, least ecstasy?"

Then all the mightier strings, assembling,
Fell a-trembling, with a trembling
Bridegroom's heart-beats quick resembling;
Ranged them on the violin's side
Like a bridegroom by his bride,
And, heart in voice, together cried:
"Yea, what avail the endless tale
Of gain by cunning and plus by sale?
Look up the land, look down the land--
The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand
Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand
Against an inward-opening door
That pressure tightens ever more:
They sigh, with a monstrous foul-air sigh,
For the outside heaven of liberty,
Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky
Into a heavenly melody.
'Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),
'In the same old year-long, drear-long way,
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns,
We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,
And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,
To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?--
Such manner of ills as brute-flesh thrills.
The beasts, they hunger, eat, sleep, die,
And so do we, and our world's a sty;
And, fellow-swine, why nuzzle and cry?
_Swinehood hath never a remedy,_
The rich man says, and passes by,
And clamps his nostril and shuts his eye.
Did God say once in God's sweet tone,
Man shall not live by bread alone,
But by all that cometh from His white throne?
Yea: God said so,
But the mills say No,
And the kilns and the strong bank-tills say _No:
There's plenty that can, if you can't. Go to:
Move out, if you think you're underpaid.
The poor are prolific; we re not afraid;
Business is business; a trade is a trade_,
Over and over the mills have said.'"

And then these passionate hot protestings
Changed to less vehement moods, until
They sank to sad suggestings
And requestings sadder still:
"And oh, if the world might some time see
'Tis not a law of necessity
That a trade just naught but a trade must be!
Does business mean, _Die, you--live, I?_
Then 'business is business' phrases a lie:
'Tis only war grown miserly.
If Traffic is battle, name it so:
War-crimes less will shame it so,
And we victims less will blame it so.
But oh, for the poor to have some part
In the sweeter half