Little Brothers of the Ground
Reading edition
Little ants in leafy wood, Bound by gentle Brotherhood, While ye gaily gather spoil, Men are ground by the wheel of toil; While ye follow Blessed Fates, Men are shriveled up with hates; Or they lie with sheeted Lust, And they eat the bitter dust. Ye are fraters in your hall, Gay and chainless, great and small; All are toilers in the field, All are sharers in the yield. But we mortals plot and plan How to grind the fellow-man; Glad to find him in a pit, If we get some gain of it. So with us, the sons of Time, Labor is a kind of crime, For the toilers have the least, While the idlers lord the feast. Yes, our workers they are bound, Pallid captives to the ground; Jeered by traitors, fooled by knaves, Till they stumble into graves. How appears to tiny eyes All this wisdom of the wise?