By the abortions of the teeming Spring,
By Summer's starved and withered offering,
By Autumn's stricken hope and Winter's sting,
Oh, hear!
By the ichneumon on the writhing worm,
By the swift, far-flung poison of the germ,
By soft and foul brought out of hard and firm,
Oh, hear!
By the fierce battle under every blade,
By the etiolation of the shade,
By drouth and thirst and things undone half made,
Oh, hear!
By all the horrors of re-quickened dust,
By the eternal waste of baffled lust,
By mildews and by cankers and by rust,
Oh, hear!
By the fierce scythe of Spring upon the wold,
By the dead eaning mother in the fold,
By stillborn, stricken young and tortured old,
Oh, hear!
By fading eyes pecked from a dying head,
By the hot mouthful of a thing not dead,
By all thy bleeding, struggling, shrieking red,
Oh, hear!
By madness caged and madness running free,
Through this our conscious race that heeds not thee,
In its concept insane of Liberty,
Oh, hear!
By all the agonies of all the past,
By earth's cold dust and ashes at the last,
By her return to the unconscious vast,
Oh, hear!