India

Here from my lonely watch-tower of the East

An ancient race outworn I see—

With dread, my own dear distant Country, lest

The same fate fall on thee.

Lo here the iron winter of curst caste

Has made men into things that creep;

The leprous beggars totter trembling past;

The baser sultans sleep.

Not for a thousand years has Freedom’s cry

The stillness of this horror cleaved,

But as of old the hopeless millions die,

That yet have never lived.

Man has no leisure but to snatch and eat,

Who should have been a god on earth;

The lean ones cry; the fat ones curse and beat,

And wealth but weakens worth.

O Heaven, shall man rebelling never take

From Fate what she denies, his bliss?

Cannot the mind that made the engine make

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