REVEILLE by Lola Ridge

COME  forth,  you  workers! 

Let  the  fires  go  cold  — 
Let  the  iron  spill  out,  out  of  the  troughs  — 
Let  the  iron  run  wild 
Like  a  red  bramble  on  the  floors  — 

Leave  the  mill  and  the  foundry  and  the  mine 
And  the  shrapnel  lying  on  the  wharves  — 
Leave  the  desk  and  the  shuttle  and  the  loom  - 
Come,  With  your  ashen  lives, 

Your  lives  like  dust  in  your  hands. 
I  call  upon  you,  workers. 
It  is  not  yet  light 
But  I  beat  upon  your  doors. 

You  say  you  await  the  Dawn 
But  I  say  you  are  the  Dawn. 
Come,  in  your  irresistible  unspent  force 
And  make  new  light  upon  the  mountains. 

You  have  turned  deaf  ears  to  others  — 
Me  you  shall  hear. 
Out  of  the  mouths  of  turbines, 
Out  of  the  turgid  throats  of  engines, 

Over  the  whistling  steam, 
You  shall  hear  me  shrilly  piping. 
Your  mills  I  shall  enter  like  the  wind, 
And  blow  upon  your  hearts, 
Kindling  the  slow  fire. 

They  think  they  have  tamed  you,  workers  — 
Beaten  you  to  a  tool 
To  scoop  up  hot  honor 
Till  it  be  cool  - 

But  out  of  the  passion  of  the  red  frontiers 
A  great  flower  trembles  and  burns  and  glows 
And  each  of  its  petals  is  a  people. 
Come  forth,  you  workers  — 

Clinging  to  your  stable 
And  your  wisp  of  warm  straw  — 
Let  the  fires  grow  cold, 
Let  the  iron  spill  out  of  the  troughs, 

Let  the  iron  run  wild 
Like  a  red  bramble  on  the  floors.  .  .  . 
As  our  forefathers  stood  on  the  prairies 
So  let  us  stand  in  a  ring, 

Let  us  tear  up  their  prisons  like  grass 
And  beat  them  to  barricades  — 
Let  us  meet  the  fire  of  their  guns 
With  a  greater  fire, 

Till  the  birds  shall  fly  to  the  mountains 
For  one  safe  bough.