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Then at last I saw and shamed; I knew how these dumb dark and dusky things Had given blood and life To fend the caves of underground The great black caves of underground The great black caves of utter night Where earth lay full of mothers And their babes. Little children sobbing in darkness, Little children crying in silent pain, Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling, Digging and delving and groveling Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life, And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood Far, far beneath the wings, The folding and unfolding of almighty wings. I bent with tears and pitying hands Above these dusky star-eyed children, Crinkly haired, with sweet-sad baby voices Pleading low for light and love and living-- And I crooned: // Little children weeping there, God shall find thy faces fair; Guerdon for thy deep distress, He shall send His tenderness; For the tripping of thy feet Make a mystic music sweet In the darkness of thy hair; Light and laughter in the air-- Little Children weeping there, God shall find thy faces fair! I strode above the stricken bleeding men, The rampart 'ranged against the skies, And shouted: "Up I say, build and slay; Fight face foremost, force a way, Unloose, unfetter and unbind; Be men and free." Dumbly they shrank Muttering they pointed toward that peak Than vastness vaster, Whereon a darkness brooded, "Who shall look and live," they sighed; And I sensed The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.