Reveille

A poem by Lola Ridge

Come forth, you workers!
Let the fires go cold -
Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs -
Let the iron run wild
Like a red bramble on the floors -
Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine
And the shrapnel lying on the wharves -
Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom -
Come,
With your ashen lives,
Your lives like dust in your hands.

I call upon you, workers.
It is not yet light
But I beat upon your doors.
You say you await the Dawn
But I say you are the Dawn.
Come, in your irresistible unspent force
And make new light upon the mountains.

You have turned deaf ears to others -
Me you shall hear.
Out of the mouths of turbines,
Out of the turgid throats of engines,
Over the whistling steam,
You shall hear me shrilly piping.
Your mills I shall enter like the wind,
And blow upon your hearts,
Kindling the slow fire.

They think they have tamed you, workers -
Beaten you to a tool
To scoop up hot honor
Till it be cool -
But out of the passion of the red frontiers
A great flower trembles and burns and glows
And each of its petals is a people.

Come forth, you workers -
Clinging to your stable
And your wisp of warm straw -
Let the fires grow cold,
Let the iron spill out of the troughs,
Let the iron run wild
Like a red bramble on the floors....

As our forefathers stood on the prairies
So let us stand in a ring,
Let us tear up their prisons like grass
And beat them to barricades -
Let us meet the fire of their guns
With a greater fire,
Till the birds shall fly to the mountains
For one safe bough.