Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

The Midnight Lunch Room
(From “The Frozen Grail and Other Poems”)

Elsa Barker

(Contemporary American poet and novelist. Catherine Breshkovsky, called “Little Mother” by the Russian peasants, was sentenced to a long term of exile in Siberia when seventy-seven years of age)

WITH little silver one may enter here,

And yet those hungry faces watch outside

The frosty window—and the door is wide!

The clatter to my unaccustomed ear

Of dishes and harsh tongues, is like a spear

Shaken within the sensitive wounded side

Of Silence. Soiled, indifferent hands provide

Pitiful fare, and cups of pallid cheer.

In my warm, fragrant home an hour ago

I wrote a sonnet on the peace they win

Who worship Beauty! Let me breathe it low.

What would it mean if chanted in this din?

What would it say to those out in the snow,

Who hunger, and who may not enter in?