Vii

See the forms, Big and sturdy and strong and brown! The sinewy arms, The naked chest, where the shirt falls down, The blue veins swollen, the sweat of toil, The sweat of brow and the earth-cast look, The coarse shoes, red with the furrow’s toil, The knotted hands.... The Field is the book These fingers turn, and these eyes pursue. The sudden hail, the deadly dew, The blight of the boll and the dry, parched days Are the lines that mark their tragedies! These are the Workers--! Their hands have made The great earth fertile from sea to sea. Silently They bend to their labour, knowing not What they shall reap that their hands have sown! “Man may not live by bread alone;” They ask but this, “and receive a stone!”