The Masses

When, wild and high, the uproar swells
From crowds that gather at the set of day,
When square and market roar in stormy play,
And fields of men, like lions, shake their fells
Of savage hair; when, quick and deep call out the bells
Through all the lower heaven ringing,
As if an earthquake's shock
The city's base should rock,
And set its troubled turrets singing:
Remember, men! on massy strength relying,
There is a heart of right
Not always open to the light,
Secret and still, and force-defying.
In vast assemblies calm let order rule,
And every shout a cadence owning,
Make musical the vex'd wind's moaning,
And be as little children at singing-school.
But, when thick as night the sky is crusted o'er,
Stifling life's pulse, and making heaven an idle dream,
Arise! and cry, up through the dark, to God's own throne:
Your faces in a furnace-glow,
Your arms uplifted for the deathward blow —
Fiery and prompt as angry angels show;
Then draw the brand and fire the thunder gun!
Be nothing said and all things done,
Till every cobweb'd corner of the common weal
Is shaken free, and, creeping to its scabbard back, the steel,
Lets shine again God's rightful sun.