Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Heirs of Time

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

(American poet and essayist, 1823–1911; a vehement anti-slavery agitator, he was colonel of the first negro regiment during the Civil War, and in later life became a devoted Socialist)

FROM street and square, from hill and glen,

Of this vast world beyond my door,

I hear the tread of marching men,

The patient armies of the poor.

Not ermine-clad or clothed in state,

Their title-deeds not yet made plain,

But waking early, toiling late,

The heirs of all the earth remain.

The peasant brain shall yet be wise,

The untamed pulse grow calm and still;

The blind shall see, the lowly rise,

And work in peace Time’s wondrous will.

Some day, without a trumpet’s call

This news will o’er the world be blown:

“The heritage comes back to all;

The myriad monarchs take their own.”