Explore "A Great Industrial Centre" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Squalid street after squalid street, / Endless rows of them, each the same, / Black dust under your weary feet, / Dust upon every face you meet, / Dust in their hearts, too, -- or so it seems -- / Dust in the place of dreams.
Spring in her beauty thrills and thrives, / Here men hardly have heard her name.
Work is the end and aim of their lives -- / Work, work, work! for their children and wives; / Work for a life which, when it is won, / Is the saddest thing 'neath the sun!
Work -- one dark and incessant round / In black dull workshops, out of the light; / Work that others' ease may abound, / Work that delight for them may be found, / Work without hope, without pause, without peace, / That only in death can cease.
Brothers, who live glad lives in the sun, / What of these men, at work in the night? / God will ask you what you have done; / Their lives be required of you -- every one -- / Ye, who were glad and who liked life well, / While they did your work -- in hell!