Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

The New State
(From the “Panama-Pacific Ode”)

George Sterling

(California poet, born 1869)

O DARK and cruel State,

Whose towers are altars unto self alone,—

Whose streets with tears are wet,

And half thy councils given unto hate!

Shall Time not hurl thy temples stone from stone,

And o’er the ruin set

A fairer city than the years have known?

Out of thy darkness do we find us dreams,

And on the future gleams

The vision of thy ramparts built anew.

Mammon and War sit now a double throne,

Yet what we dream, a wiser Age shall do.

Be ye lift up, O everlasting gates

Of that far City men shall build for man!

O fairer Day that waits,

The splendor of whose dawn we shall not see,

When selfish bonds of family and clan

Melt in the higher love that yet shall be!

O State without a master or a slave,

Whose law of light we crave

Ere morning widen on a world set free!