HOPE By Gerald Desmond

HOPE

Gerald Desmond

Comrades, look up, at last the mists are clearing,

    See, from earth’s travail freedom springs newborn;

The goal of all our hopes at last we’re nearing;

    This is the last dark hour before the dawn.

The blood-stained tryrant in his palace splendid,

    Who rules to-day by might of iron hand,

Is doomed. E’en now the sword of fate, suspended

    Above him, hangs by but a single strand.

The other tryants too—the robber band

    Who lord it o’er the world industrial,

Who in their greed oppress and crush the land;

    Upon them, also, that sharp sword shall fall.

Not long ago, blind, ignorant and dumb

    I saw my brothers in the darkness grope;

I knew some day the light to them would come.

    Yet of its coming soon had little hope.   

But now ’tis changed, the first flush of the dawn

    Is here; the light is spreading in the sky;

I, I myself, shall see the world newborn,

    Shall see the last of slavery passaway.