My Brothers, Listen
My brothers, listen, I have something to say to you:
I have watched you at your work through many days of many years,
I have shared with you your struggles for life and with your masters:
Now I ask you to listen, I want to make a confession.
I want to confess that I have taken my eyes off the kings and the great men and fixed them on you:
I have found in you what I expected to find in them and was cheated of,
I have hunted up reasons and roots and found them always in you,
I have read the great books and asked how they came and found they came from you:
The common man, the general earth, seas and stars, the unnamed, the immortally obscure.
You have threaded time and gone without returns,
You have always been where crises called for you, yet were never celebrated in the catalogue of events,
The kings have failed, the great have failed, you have never failed.
I saw that you fed the loom: but who fed you?
I saw that you fueled the fire: but who fueled you?
History put up big signs but they never bore your name,
History set great feasts but you were never invited.
You go to work in the morning with your dinner pail on your arm:
Does that pail contain your dinner alone and provide only for your simple day?
Millions of mouths to come hereafter are to be fed by that pail you carry on your arm.
When you go home at night after the day's work the universe goes home with you,
When you strike against the injustice of the master the sun strikes with you,
For streams run up and down from you, and the tides derive their ebb and flood from you,
For the pride of the world and the humility of the world are alike products of the muscles of your arms,
For the law of the common earth is the law of the common man.
My brother, listen, I have something to say to you:
I have arrived with the great world here at your workbench worshiping the tools of your trade,
I have adjourned all other causes to your cause and brought history close by to record your long ignored renown,
So that when men see you on your way to work mornings or nights or whenever they will take off their hats,
So that men and women and children will not go to church to see God or to the legislature to see Justice,
But will go to you wherever you are, in your humblest employment,
Hungry, confident, by you eternally confirmed.
I have watched you at your work through many days of many years,
I have shared with you your struggles for life and with your masters:
Now I ask you to listen, I want to make a confession.
I want to confess that I have taken my eyes off the kings and the great men and fixed them on you:
I have found in you what I expected to find in them and was cheated of,
I have hunted up reasons and roots and found them always in you,
I have read the great books and asked how they came and found they came from you:
The common man, the general earth, seas and stars, the unnamed, the immortally obscure.
You have threaded time and gone without returns,
You have always been where crises called for you, yet were never celebrated in the catalogue of events,
The kings have failed, the great have failed, you have never failed.
I saw that you fed the loom: but who fed you?
I saw that you fueled the fire: but who fueled you?
History put up big signs but they never bore your name,
History set great feasts but you were never invited.
You go to work in the morning with your dinner pail on your arm:
Does that pail contain your dinner alone and provide only for your simple day?
Millions of mouths to come hereafter are to be fed by that pail you carry on your arm.
When you go home at night after the day's work the universe goes home with you,
When you strike against the injustice of the master the sun strikes with you,
For streams run up and down from you, and the tides derive their ebb and flood from you,
For the pride of the world and the humility of the world are alike products of the muscles of your arms,
For the law of the common earth is the law of the common man.
My brother, listen, I have something to say to you:
I have arrived with the great world here at your workbench worshiping the tools of your trade,
I have adjourned all other causes to your cause and brought history close by to record your long ignored renown,
So that when men see you on your way to work mornings or nights or whenever they will take off their hats,
So that men and women and children will not go to church to see God or to the legislature to see Justice,
But will go to you wherever you are, in your humblest employment,
Hungry, confident, by you eternally confirmed.
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