The People

Ah the people, the people!

surely they are flesh of my flesh!

When, in the streets of the working quarters

they stream past, stream past, going to work;

then, when I see the iron hooked in their faces,

their poor, their fearful faces

then I scream in my soul, for I know I cannot

cut the iron hook out of their faces, that makes them so drawn,

nor cut the invisible wires of steel that pull them

back and forth to work,

back and forth, to work

like fearful and corpse-like fishes hooked and being played

by some malignant fisherman on an unseen, safe shore

where he does not choose to land them yet, hooked fishes of the factory world.