Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

The Easter Children
(From “The Frozen Grail and other Poems”)

Elsa Barker

(Contemporary American poet and novelist. Catherine Breshkovsky, called “Little Mother” by the Russian peasants, was sentenced to a long term of exile in Siberia when seventy-seven years of age)

“CHRIST the Lord is risen!”

Chant the Easter children,

Their love-moulded faces

Luminous with gladness,

And their costly raiment

Gleaming like the lilies.

But last night I wandered

Where Christ had not risen,

Where love knows no gladness,

Where the lord of Hunger

Leaves no room for lilies,

And no time for childhood.

And today I wonder

Whether I am dreaming;

For above the swelling

Of their Easter music

I can hear the murmur,

“Suffer all the children.”

Nay, the world is dreaming!

And my seeing spirit

Trembles for its waking,

When their Saviour rises

To restore the lilies

To the outcast children.