The Labor enquirer., 1883-09-08
Written for The Enquirer.
ADMONITIoN.
BY T. +. ROWLAND.


working fora dollar day."-Paper.
o, brothers, crowded from the path,
When fortune smiles with kindly face,
+ Your days are full of gloom and wrath,
And puny worth usurps your place.
The air comes chill adown your skies
And storm-clouds pile, portentious, black
Your world in vengeful slumben lies;
No meteor flames along its track.
No flowers of light their perfumes shed,
TO chase the sullen dark which reigns
Amid the clouds that smite your head,
And trail their onlens Ger your plains.
No opoet-soul, in measure sweet,
His harp awakes to sing your woe; :.
The centuries pass, with noiseless feet
Yet still your unseen teardrops flow.
Only dollar day! only dollar day
Are we drifting on to the brink where
poverty sits in tears?
Are the hands of the honest millions to
droop on the public way,
And no voice ascend to the heavens, to
tighten their waking fears?
Fools to be cringing ever, to cover meath
the lifted lash?
Are the fingers that circle around it be-
longing to gods, or men?
A trifle daintier, maybe, than the toiling ones
that dash
The rocks from their resting places, the
oak from the teeming glen.
Why will ye stand so silent; ye, the flower
of the land?
Ye, whom the gods have beckoned to
drink of the richest wine,
But deep in the worlds Seclusion ye see not
the raising hand,
Nor taste of the ruby chalice, the offering
of Gods divine.
Misty your eyes to brightness; pallid the lips
that should
Flush as the crimson sunset through the
rift of the dal kest cloud.
How may the heavens crown ye, ye who are
deaf to good?
ListeSS to voices floating; ye who should
step so proud.
Only dollar day only dollar day!
Sneer they, and fling ye the mattock tc
either work or go.
; A princely price for such pith; wasting Of
wealth away;
An even poise Of justice-a shielding from
want and woe.
Cast to the earth their harness; tell them ye
will not Stoop
. e. 10 tN ha nf
pttance the miSers give.
Face the pitileSs upstairs, ere ye in YOU
hunger drOOp.
Tomorrow may darken deeper Tomorrow
ye may not live!
. Gloom on the hill and valley, where the fires
should ever blaze
Gloom in the worlds center, wall from
it mighty heart;
Sound of comninged voices eyes with the
naniac's gaze,
Piercing the futures bIackness with keen
and searching dart.
Banners that dim the azure, spread to the
winds that sigh,
Upheld by hands as naughty as strove fol
Egypt'S crown;
Bayonets fronting the demonstrating ths
terraced sky;
Faces of direst meaning, pennantS tha
rise and drown.
Silence for years, wherever the whirr of the
loom came low
Silence where the. stroke Of hammer came
thro' the hours of day;
Silence in mart and city; the people in weari
ness go.
Robed in an awful stiffness, they glide like
phantOms away.
Silence, then, fierce confusion, straining OF
arm and brain,
Grapple of death and tumult, trembling Of
massive WALL
Rivers of blood in the valley, torrents Of
poisonous rain;
FCries OF distress in the city, from cabin
from palace and hall.
What does it mean Oh ye prophets, sitting
in mansions fine?
Starvers of noble manhood, with lackies to
come and GO,
All, ye watch not the simeon broOding, but
sip your costly wine.
Arise, ere the people awaken, ere riot and
passion flow.
A ~