OH, when the world is hopeless
what is a man to
do?
When the vast
masses of men have been caught by the machine
into the industrial dance of
the living death, the jigging of
wage-paid work,
and fed on condition they dance this dance of
corpses driven
by
steam.
When year by year, year in, year out, in millions, in
increasing millions
they dance, dance, dance this dry industrial jig of the
corpses
entangled in
iron
and there’s no
escape, for the iron goes through their genitals,
brains, and souls
then what is a single man to
do?
For mankind is a single corpus, we are all one
flesh
even with the
industrial masses, and the greedy middle
mass.
Is it hopeless, hopeless, hopeless?
has the iron got them
fast?
are their
hearts the hub of the wheel?
the millions, millions of my
fellow-men!
Then must a single man die with them, in the clutch of
iron?
Or must he try
to amputate himself from the iron-entangled
body of mankind
and risk bleeding to death, but
perhaps escape into some
unpopular place
and leave the fearful Laocoon of his fellow-man
entangled in iron
to
its fearful fate.