Classic Poem

Life will finish the work you are doing.
You are only one who has joined the workers
In the morning, at noon or toward shadows.
Countless have toiled before you,
There will be countless toiling after.

The crowds in the street move faster and faster,
Their eyes are on invisible clocks that speed the hours,
They move fast and faster, they must know soon. . . .

There is a cause and they are comrades. . . .

This is the word to come where men will look for truth.
On every one of the streets of all the cities
Not one of the hurrying crowds can flee this word. . . .

I say it wherever there is one anxious,
Where there is one doubting or hoping over the land,
Where prayer is, or blasphemy;
To all who cross their thresholds at evening, slowly,
To the young and enduring, the old who sit listless,
The mothers, the thinkers, the makers, the dreamers—

I write it now in ink,
The word that was written in blood—
It will come, one day, in light
For all to read.