I leave to paltry poets
The tabor and the lute;
I sing in drums and tom-toms
The black abysmal brute –
My voice is of the people,
That giant wild and mute.
(With blood of all the ages
His broken nails are black,
The whole world weights and burdens
His hairy bestial back;
He shambles down forever
A blind and tangled track.)
I bring no polished diamonds,
No gems from London town;
No cultured whim or fancy
My rugged verses crown;
You find here naught but power
That breaks a city down.
I spill no words of beauty,
Coins from a silver purse,
My hands are built of iron,
And iron is in my verse.
I bring no love but fury,
No blessing but a curse.
My low pitched brow is slanting,
My eyes are burning red,
With fierce black primal visions
That thunder in my head;
Behind my heart the rivers
And all the jungles spread.
And labored at the wall;
I watched the birth of pavements
Beneath my slugging maul –
And in a frenzied dawning
I saw her towers fall.
I toiled in Tuscan vineyards,
I broke the beaten loam,
I strained against the mallet
That drove the chisel home;
I sweated in the galleys
That broke the road to Rome.
Oh, Khan and king and pharaoh!
In cold and drouth and heat
I bled to build your glory,
An ant beneath your feet –
But always rose a morning
When blood ran in the street.
The world upon my shoulders
Knee deep in muck and silt,
My hand beneath my tatters
Still grips the hidden hilt –
Who fed the ancient rivers
With blood rebellions spilt?