Thinking were they no thought of hunger and pinching cold;
    Of the blue-lipped, skinny children, the thin-chested, coughing men,
    The dry-breasted mothers, the dirt, disease and ignorance,
    The mangled workmen, the tramps, drunkards, pickpockets,
        prostitutes, thieves,
    The mad-houses, jails, asylums and hospitals, the sores, the blood
        of war,
    And all the other wondrous blessings that attend our civilization—­
    That civilization through which the wines and foods were given them.

    I saw the Socialist there, calm, unmoved, unsmiling, thoughtful,
    Sober, serious, full of dispassionate and prophetic vision,
    Not like the other men, the all-wise Leaders of the People. 
    The political economists, the professors, the militarists, heroes
        and statisticians;
    Not like the kings and presidents and emperors, the nobles and
        gold-crammed bankers,
    But mindful, more than they, of the cellars under the House of Life
    Where blind things crawl in the dark, things men and yet not human,
    Things whose toil makes possible the Banquets of the Leaders of Men,
    Things that live and yet are not alive; things that never taste of
        Life;
    Things that make the rich foods, themselves snatching filthy crumbs;
    Things that produce the wines of price, and must be content with
        lees;
    Things that shiver and cringe and whine, that snarl sometimes,
    That are men and women and children, and yet that know not Life!

    I saw the Socialist there; I sat at the banquet; beside him,
    Listened to the surging music, saw all the lights and flowers,
    Flowers and lights and crystal cups, whereof the price for each
    Might have brought back from Potter’s Field some bloodless,
        starving baby. 
    I heard the Leaders’ speeches, the turgid oratory,
    The well-turned phrases of the Captains, the rotund babble of
        prosperity,
    (Prosperity for whom?  Nay, ask not troublesome questions!)
    The Captains’ vaunting I heard, their boasts of glory and victory,
    While red, red, red their hands dripped red with the blood of the
        butchered workers. 
    I heard the Judges’ self-glorification, Quixotic fighting of
        windmills,
    Heard also the unclean jests that those respected Leaders told. 
    And as I looked and listened, I still observed the Socialist,
    Unmoved and patient and serious, calm, full of sober reflections.

    Then there spake (among many others) an honored and full-paunched
        Bishop. 
    Rubicund he was, and of portly habit of body,
    Shepherd of a well-pastured flock, mightily content with God,
    Out of whose omnipotent Hand (no doubt) the blessings of his life
        descended. 
    I heard this exponent of Christ