Classic Poem

Take up, who will, the challenge;
Stand pat on graft and greed;
Grow sleek on others' labor,
Surfeit on others' need;
Let paid and bloodless tricksters
Devise a legal way
Our common right and justice
“To sell, deny, delay.”

Not yesterday nor lightly
We came to know that breed;
Our quarrel with that cunning
Is old as Runnymede.
We saw enfranchised insult
Deploy in kingly line,
When broke our sullen fury
On Rupert of the Rhine. . . .

Now, masking raid and rapine
In debonair disguise,
The foe we thought defeated
Deludes our careless eyes,
Entrenched in law and largess
And the vested wrong of things,
Cloaking a fouler treason
Than any faithless king's

He takes our life for wages,
He holds our land for rent,
He sweats our little children
To swell his cent per cent;
With secret grip and levy
On every crumb we eat,
He drives our sons to thieving,
Our daughters to the street. . . .

Against the grim defenses
Where might and murrain hide,
Unswerving to the issue
Loose-reined and rough we ride
Full tardily, to rescue
Our heritage from wrong,
And establish it on manhood,
A thousand times more strong.

Take up, who will, the challenge;
Stand pat on graft and greed;
Grow sleek on others' labor,
Surfeit on others' need;
Let paid and bloodless tricksters
Devise a legal way
Our common right and justice
“To sell, deny, delay.”

Not yesterday nor lightly
We came to know that breed;
Our quarrel with that cunning
Is old as Runnymede.
We saw enfranchised insult
Deploy in kingly line,
When broke our sullen fury
On Rupert of the Rhine. . . .

Now, masking raid and rapine
In debonair disguise,
The foe we thought defeated
Deludes our careless eyes,
Entrenched in law and largess
And the vested wrong of things,
Cloaking a fouler treason
Than any faithless king's.

He takes our life for wages,
He holds our land for rent,
He sweats our little children
To swell his cent per cent;
With secret grip and levy
On every crumb we eat,
He drives our sons to thieving,
Our daughters to the street. . . .

Against the grim defenses
Where might and murrain hide,
Unswerving to the issue
Loose-reined and rough we ride
Full tardily, to rescue
Our heritage from wrong,
And stablish it on manhood,
A thousand times more strong.