WHEN I am in a great city, I know that I
despair.
I know
there is no hope for us, death waits, it is useless to
care.
For oh the
poor people, that are flesh of my flesh,
I, that am flesh of their
flesh,
when I see
the iron hooked into their faces
their poor, their fearful faces
I scream in my soul, for I know
I cannot
take the
iron hook out of their faces, that makes them so drawn,
nor cut the invisible wires of
steel that pull them
back and forth, to work,
back and forth to work,
like fearful and corpse-like
fishes hooked and being played
by some malignant fisherman on an unseen
shore
where he does
not choose to land them yet, hooked fishes of
the factory world.