DO YOU HEAR THE CHILDREN WEEPING

from "The Cry of the Children"

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1800-61

Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 

      Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,  - 

      And that cannot stop their tears. 

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; 

   The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 

The young fawns are playing with the shadows ; 

   The young flowers are blowing toward the west -

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

      They are weeping bitterly ! 

They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

      In the country of the free. 

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary, 

      And we cannot run or leap -

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 

      To drop down in them and sleep. 

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping  - 

   We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; 

And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 

   The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. 

For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, 

      Through the coal-dark, underground  - 

Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 

      In the factories, round and round. 

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, 

      And their look is dread to see, 

For they think you see their angels in their places, 

      With eyes meant for Deity ; -

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, 

   Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, -

Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, 

   And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? 

Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants, 

      And your purple shews your path ; 

But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence 

      Than the strong man in his wrath !"

-o0o-