Read "A Death Song" by William Morris online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are sending / Aback to those who bade them wake and know. / _Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, / But one and all if they would dusk the day._
We asked them for a life of toilsome earning, / They bade us bide their leisure for our bread; / We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning: / We come back speechless, bearing back our dead. / _Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, / But one and all if they would dusk the day._
They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.
They turn their faces from the eyes of fate; / Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.
But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate. / _Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, / But one and all if they would dusk the day._
Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison; / Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest; / But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen / Brings us our day of work to win the best. / _Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, / But one and all if they would dusk the day._