=The Agitator=

Where hurrying thousands meet,
  And poor in living streams on either hand. 
Amidst the richest street,
  With set and stubborn face he takes his stand. 
The lesson to repeat
  Of evil days and acts which curse the land.

Indifference cools him not;
  And jeers and blows he takes, perchance, beside. 
Brave, he accepts his lot;
  At worst he meets it with a martyr’s pride. 
To bear, he knows not what,
  He seeks the crowd and will not be denied.

His voice is loud and strong,
  And vigorous gestures add their potent force,
As to the restless throng
  He pictures clear corruption’s crafty course,
Or challenges the wrong
  Which in some unjust privilege finds its source.

A true son of the soil,
    And feeling, as the hard-pressed masses feel,
The things which mar and spoil,
    And bind life down with bonds as strong as steel,
He knows the men who toil,
    And truth to these he can most clear reveal.

No knotty theories
    He offers to the listeners who attend,
Or generalities,
    Which glitter with the gilt that fine words lend;
He sets forth what he sees
    So simply that who hears can comprehend.

The deep philosopher,
    The pedant wise, whose wisdom makes him cold. 
Instructs, but cannot stir
    The heart of work, whose hope is tried and old;
But this one strives to spur
    The rebel in the blood and make it bold.

He lifts the common thought,
    And e’en the common heart up to the light;
Till, by his teaching wrought
    To understand their wrongs and know their might
Plain men at last are brought
    To rouse in truceless struggle for the right.