Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“ And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within his right hand, which is strong.
Our Father! If he heard us, he would surely
(For they call him good and mild)
Answer—smiling down the steep world very purely—
‘Come and rest with me, my child.’
“But no,” say the children, weeping faster;
“He is silent as a stone,
And they tell us, of his image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!” say the children; “up in heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find! ”

“ Down the cheeks of infancy.
“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary—
Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek!
Ask the old why they weep, and not the children;
For the outside earth is cold—
And we young ones stand without, in our bewild'ring,
And the graves are for the old.
“True,” say the young children,” it may happen
That we die before our time!
Little Alice died last year—the grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime. ”

“ Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.
“All day long, the wheels are droning, turning—
Their wind comes in our faces!
Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places!
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling—
Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall—
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling—
All are turning all the day, and we with all!
All day long, the iron wheels are droning—
And sometimes we could pray—
‘O ye wheels’ (breaking off in a mad moaning)
Stop! ”