CHORUS

Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error,

That drown each other;

Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror,

O Earth, O mother.

Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow,

The pathless past;

Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow,

The way at last.

By the sloth of men that all too long endure men

On man to tread;

By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor men

That faint for bread;

By the blood-sweat of the people in the garden

Inwalled of kings;

By his passion interceding for their pardon

Who do these things;

By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labour

For not their fruit;

By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour,

That, mad, is mute;

By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom

— Ah God, the child!

By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosom

Till woe runs wild;

By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in,

Where men lack meat;

By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine;

By field and street;

By the people, by the poor man, by the master

That men call slave;

By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster,

By wreck, by wave;

By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving,

Still eastward bound,

Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving,

And land be found:

We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach thee

Though no star steer us,

By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee,

O mother, hear us.