The Cry of the Unfit + 

The gods have left us, the creeds have crumbled; + 

There are none to pity and none to care: + 

Our fellows have crushed us where we have stumbled; + 

They have made of our bodies a bleeding stair. + 

Loud rang the bells in the Christmas steeples; + 

We heard them ring through the bitter morn: + 

The promise of old to the weary peoples + 

Came floating sweetly⁠—“Christ is born.” + 

But the words were mocking, sorely mocking, + 

As we sought the sky through our freezing tears, + 

We children, who’ve hung the Christmas stocking, + 

And found it empty two thousand years. + 

No, there is naught in the old creed for us; + 

Love and peace are to those who win; + 

To them the delight of the golden chorus, + 

To us the hunger and shame and sin. + 

Why then live on since our lives are fruitless, + 

Since peace is certain and death is rest; + 

Since our masters tell us the strife is bootless, + 

And Nature scorns her unwelcome guest? + 

You who have climbed on our aching bodies, + 

You who have thought because we have toiled, + 

Priests of the creed of a newer goddess, + 

Searchers in depths where the Past was foiled. + 

Speak in the name of the faith that you cherish! + 

Give us the truth! We have bought it with woe! + 

Must we forever thus worthlessly perish, + 

Burned in the desert and lost in the snow? + 

Trampled, forsaken, foredoomed, and forgotten⁠— + 

Helplessly tossed like the leaf in the storm? + 

Bred for the shambles, with curses begotten, + 

Useless to all save the rotting grave-worm? + 

Give us some anchor to stay our mad drifting! + 

Give, for your own sakes! for lo, where our blood, + 

A red tide to drown you, is steadily lifting! + 

Help! or you die in the terrible flood! + 