Classic Poem

These are my people where bullets fly
And the snorting dragon of death goes by.
Like the faggots he tramples them under claws,
Struggling mice in tomcat paws.

These are my people: the octaroon,
Or white or yellow as harvest moon,
Your people, our people, everyone,
Brothers beneath the beneficent sun,
Brothers through ice or tropic rain,
Brothers in laughter, brothers in pain.

These are my people, yours and mine,
In hobo jungle, by roadway shrine,
In dustbowl fields where the tom-tom sun
Beats all life to oblivion.

Women, whose larders are bare and dry,
Whose withered blossoms of children cry,
Whose husbands curse in the empty room
And scuff their shoes through the dust of doom.

These are my people, I hold them sure
In the brotherhood that shall endure,
In the militant brotherhood that strives
To lift the burden from their lives.

To clothe with sturdy flesh the bone,
To stop the wracking cough and groan,
To fill the stove with coal and wood.
This is the only brotherhood.

This is the brotherhood that stirs
Faith where the mammoth engine purrs,
Solidarity where the wheels
Hum a litany that heals,

Hum a ritual that declares
All things come to him who dares,
All things come to those who dare
Unite for plenty everywhere.

These are our people. We hold them sure
In the brotherhood that shall endure,
In the brotherhood that brings to birth
Not slaves but masters of the earth!

These are my people where bullets fly
And the snorting dragon of death goes by.
Like the faggots he tramples them under claws,
Struggling mice in tomcat paws.

These are my people: the octaroon,
Or white or yellow as harvest moon,
Your people, our people, everyone,
Brothers beneath the beneficent sun,
Brothers through ice or tropic rain,
Brothers in laughter, brothers in pain.

These are my people, yours and mine,
In hobo jungle, by roadway shrine,
In dustbowl fields where the tom-tom sun
Beats all life to oblivion.

Women, whose larders are bare and dry,
Whose withered blossoms of children cry,
Whose husbands curse in the empty room
And scuff their shoes through the dust of doom.

These are my people, I hold them sure
In the brotherhood that shall endure,
In the militant brotherhood that strives
To lift the burden from their lives.

To clothe with sturdy flesh the bone,
To stop the wracking cough and groan,
To fill the stove with coal and wood.
This is the only brotherhood.

This is the brotherhood that stirs
Faith where the mammoth engine purrs,
Solidarity where the wheels
Hum a litany that heals,

Hum a ritual that declares
All things come to him who dares,
All things come to those who dare
Unite for plenty everywhere.

These are our people. We hold them sure
In the brotherhood that shall endure,
In the brotherhood that brings to birth
Not slaves but masters of the earth!