Today’s robber barons are just like the robber barons 100 years ago, and they were like the ones before them. As Solomon wrote, there is nothing new under the sun. Solomon was a robber baron, too.

I would love to be sharing poems like this one as just an historical artifact, but Lola Ridge’s call to action for workers—and her other poems pushing for workers’ rights, gay rights, and women’s rights—continue to be prescient. You can find her bio and more poems over at poets.org.

With radical care for the least of these and bold action, we can wriggle out from under the thumb of the wealthy once again.

If you enjoy this poetry selection from the public domain, consider supporting my writing projects at ko-fi.com/thepoetmiranda and/or subscribing here. In addition to sharing my readings of public domain poems, I also share original poems (My latest “Hypermobility”) and tracks (like this one) from my transition mixtape memoir.

The poem text is below, followed by my video reading.

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Come forth, you workers!Let the fires go cold—Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs—Let the iron run wildLike a red bramble on the floors—Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine And the shrapnel lying on the wharves—Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom—Come, With your ashen lives, Your lives like dust in your hands.

I call upon you, workers. It is not yet light But I beat upon your doors. You say you await the DawnBut I say you are the Dawn. Come, in your irresistible unspent force And make new light upon the mountains.

You have turned deaf ears to others—Me you shall hear. Out of the mouths of turbines, Out of the turgid throats of engines, Over the whisling steam, You shall hear me shrilly piping. Your mills I shall enter like the wind, And blow upon your hearts, Kindling the slow fire.

They think they have tamed you, workers—Beaten you to a toolTo scoop up a hot honor Till it be cool—But out of the passion of the red frontiersA great flower trembles and burns and glowsAnd each of its petals is a people.

Come forth, you workers—Clinging to your stableAnd your wisp of warm straw—Let the fires grow cold, Let the iron spill out of the troughs, Let the iron run wildLike a red bramble on the floors . . .

As our forefathers stood on the prairies So let us stand in a ring, Let us tear up their prisons like grassAnd beat them to barricades—Let us meet the fire of their gunsWith a greater fire, Till the birds shall fly to the mountainsFor one safe bough.