Death, I have walked with you through summer days, Bright summer days, life leaping to its prime; When fields laughed innocent of harvest time, And you were banished from sweet country ways Pelted with blossoms; -- prone, yet strong to raise Your head and, like your fallen parent, climb To hellish rule in city streets. Whose crime, The myriad children each fair Summer slays? Man's work, this is, not God's. Him we forget, Housing our brethren like beasts of the soil, Of beauty stripped, of smiles, of youth, of health. The curse of slavery is with us yet; Which uses without love, accepts the toil, Discards the life, and builds on blood its wealth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STANZAS by GEORGE GORDON BYRON RUPERT BROOKE by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON SONG: TO CELIA by PHILOSTRATUS SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 48 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE RIVER AND THE SEA by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) ARISTOCRACY by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON A LOVER, ON AN ACCIDENT NECESSITATING DEPARTURE, CONSULTS WITH REASON by THOMAS CAREW |