Classic Poem

Out of the water they took him, smoothed the tangled hair,
Carried him home to his mother, laid him on the bed.
Dark hot words and wailing hung in the frightened air:
Johnny Madeiros is dead!

Dead now. Quiet.
“They have taken our terrible toil,” said one,
They have taken the years of our youth and the filthy crusts of our bread;
They have taken the clothes from our backs and out of our sky the sun—
They have given us our dead.

“But the dead shall make us stronger; our picketlines shall be
Like a great sweeping tide with a little boy at the head.
Masters, O bloody masters, rejoice in your victory:
Johnny Madeiros is dead!”