Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | | Bound |
By May Beals |
(Contemporary American writer and lecturer) |
| | | SOMETIMES I feel the tide of life in me | |
| Flood upward, high and higher, till I stand | |
| Tiptoe, aflame with energy, a god, | |
| Young, virile, glorying in my youth and power. | |
| But not for long; the grip of poverty | 5 |
| Seizes me, sets my daily task; the eyes | |
| Of those I love, looking to me for bread | |
| Pierce me like eagles’ beaks through very love. | |
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| I am Prometheus bound; these cares and fears | |
| Tear at my vitals, leave me broken, spent. | 10 |
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| And unavailingly ’tis spent, my life, | |
| My wondrous life, so pregnant with rich powers. | |
| That stuff in me from which heroic deeds, | |
| Great thoughts and noble poems might be made | |
| Is wrenched from me, is coined in wealth, and spent | 15 |
| By others; save that I and mine receive | |
| A mere existence, bare of hope and joy, | |
| Bare even of comfort. | |
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| Comrades, stretched and bound | |
| In agony on labor’s rock, we live— | 20 |
| And die—to fatten vultures! | | | | |
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