Ah the people, the people!
surely they are flesh of my flesh!
When, in the streets of the working quarters,
they stream past, stream past, going to
work;
then, when I see the iron hooked in their
faces,
their poor, their fearful faces,
then I scream in my soul, for I know I cannot
cut the iron hook out of their faces, that makes them so
drawn,
nor cut the invisible wires of steel that pull
them
back and forth to work,
back and forth, to work
like fearful and corpse-like fishes hooked and being
played
by some malignant fisherman on an unseen, safe shore
where he does not choose to land them yet, hooked fishes
of
the factory
world.