_Round_, _round_, _round in its tunnel_ _The shaft turns pitiless strong_, _While lost souls cry out in the darkness_: “_How long_, _O Lord_, _how long_?”
Up from the oven pit, The hell where poor men toil, At the sunset hour he comes Clean-clothed, washed from soil.
On the fo’c’s’le head he kneels, His face to the hallowed West. He prays, and bows and prays. Does he pray for death and rest?
O India, India, O my lovely land— At whose sweet throat the greedy English snake, With fangs and lips that suck and never slake, Clings, while around thee, band by stifling band, The loathsome shape twists, chaining foot and hand— O from this death-swoon must thou never wake, From limbs enfranchised these foul fetters to shake, And, proud among the nations, to rise and stand? Nay, but thine eyes, thine eyes wherein there stays The patience of that august faith that scorns The tinsel creed of Christ, dream still and gaze Where, not within the timeless East and haze, The haunt of that wan moon with fading horns, There breaks the first of Himalayan morns!
There was a time when all thy sons were proud To speak thy name, England, when Europe echoed back aloud Thy fearless fame:
When Spain reeled shattered helpless from thy guns And splendid ire, When from Canadian snows to Indian suns Pitt’s soul was fire.
O that in days like these were, fair and free From shame and scorn, Fate had allowed, benignly, pityingly That I was born!
O that, if struck, then struck with glorious wounds, I bore apart (Not torn with fangs of leprous coward hounds) My bleeding heart!
We hate you—not because of cruel deeds Staining a glorious effort. They who live Learn in this earth to give and to forgive, Where heart and soul are noble and fate’s needs Imperious: No, nor yet that cruel seeds Of power and wrong you’ve sown alternative, We hate you, we your sons who yet believe That truth and justice are not empty creeds! No, but because of greed and golden pay, Wages of sin and death: because you smother Your conscience, making cursèd all the day. Bible in one hand, bludgeon in the other, Cain-like you come upon and slay your brother, And, kneeling down, thank God for it, and pray!
I whom you fed with shame and starved with woe, I wheel above you, Your fatal vulture, for I hate you so, I almost love you!