CHORUS

Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error, That drown each other; Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror, O Earth, O mother.

Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow, The pathless past; Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow, The way at last.

By the sloth of men that all too long endure men On man to tread; By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor men That faint for bread;

By the blood-sweat of the people in the garden Inwalled of kings; By his passion interceding for their pardon Who do these things;

By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labour For not their fruit; By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour, That, mad, is mute;

By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom — Ah God, the child! By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosom Till woe runs wild;

By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in, Where men lack meat; By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine; By field and street;

By the people, by the poor man, by the master That men call slave; By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster, By wreck, by wave;

By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving, Still eastward bound, Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving, And land be found:

We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach thee Though no star steer us, By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee, O mother, hear us.