The apples are water, Dearest,
The dates are only sweet,
There is no flesh in the juice of the grape,
Nor life in the berry we eat!
In the blood of the kid we have slain
In our new and terrible greed,
Lie the gristle and marrow we need, —
In the pitiful yield of the grain:
The barley that beards the wild rain,
The corn that the crow contests,
The milk in the white wheat's breasts, —
Behold my red hands as I speak,
And the curse of the sweat on my cheek!

The garden was all before us
Where reaches to-day a waste,
Its plentiful clusters o'er us,
Eternity in their taste;
I could lie in your tresses, and reach
In the roses, the flush of the South;
Power fell, with the figs, in my mouth,
And youth in the bite of the peach;
I am weary, but still they beseech, —
These sinews, that hunger and thirst
In their famine the fiercest and first;
And thine eyes, where love's wishes I read,
Look the eloquence only of — bread.

No more shall the noons be luscious,
The nights be tender strolls,
Sweet sleep delightful hushes
In the fond talk of our souls;
Yoked this stature, thou praised, to the clod,
Farewell to the leisure so dear!
No more by the streams shall we hear
The intimate thoughts of our God,
But harrow our hearts with the sod, —
Dismissed our high quests to the winds,
And the infinite wish of our minds,
And the beautiful dreams that we prize,
Like the birds that forsake Paradise.

I must seek so late thy kisses,
So soon thy side discard,
And my tenderest caresses
Bestow with hands so hard.
It is not for my lot that I plead,
Too proud at my burden to groan,
Nor yet, O my wife! for thine own,
But the races of men which succeed:
The cannibal children of greed,
Who fight at the bosom they crave,
And walk from the cradle to slave,
Till populous hunger shall shed
The blood of its brethren for bread.

The world from the sun slips farther,
As we far from God's face;
There is war declared eternal
'Twixt nature and our race.
But it is not the end that we dread;
Fighting up to God's feet as we toil,
We shall trample this curse from the soil,
And conquer the bondage of bread,
Making Nature our slave in our stead,
Till the frost shall say truce, and the rain
Draw near, at the beck of the grain,
And our sons, with the sheaves at their knee,
Reach again of the fruit of the tree.