'WE sow the fertile seed and then we reap it; <br />We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread. <br />Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it, <br />While we hunger outside with hearts like lead. <br />Hallelujah! <br />'We hew the stone and saw it, rear the city. <br />Others inhabit there in pleasant ease. <br />We have no thing to ask of them save pity, <br />No answer they to give but what they please. <br />Hallelujah! <br />'Is it for ever, fathers, say, and mothers, <br />That we must toil and never know the light? <br />Is it for ever, sisters, say, and brothers, <br />That they must grind us dead here in the night? <br />Hallelujah! <br />'O we who sow, reap, knead, shall we not also <br />Have strength and pleasure of the food we make? <br />O we who hew, build, deck, shall we not also <br />The happiness that we have given partake? <br />Hallelujah!'<br /><br />Francis William Lauderdale Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/evening-hymn-in-the-hovels/
