Written in the same format at Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “The Cry Of The Children”.

I

Do ye hear the voices weeping, oh, my brothers,
Ere the chains grow cold with rust and time?
From the shadows rise the sighs of others,
Bound in silence, sold for blood and dime.
Their cries are muffled, locked in holds below,
Yet through the stillness pierce the anguished calls—
A hymn of sorrow mortals ought to know,
Where freedom falls beneath the trafficker’s thralls.

II

For they are young, the stolen, tender-hearted,
Plucked from hearths where once they laughed and played,
To distant lands by cruel hands carted,
Their innocence a coin too swiftly weighed.
The meadows green, the skies of azure hue,
Are lost to them—replaced by iron gloom,
And yet ye say, “The world turns ever new,”
While children rot in trafficking’s dark womb.

III

Do ye see their eyes, so wide with terror,
Gazing through the bars of flesh-made cages?
Their dreams dissolve in nights of bitter error,
Their youth inscribed on slavery’s grim pages.
They call to God, but hear no soft reply,
For mortal greed has drowned the sacred sound—
“Oh, let us live!” their spirits faintly cry,
Yet none to loose the shackles can be found.

IV

The wheels of commerce grind with ceaseless motion,
The ports grow fat with ships of human woe,
And gold is king across the sprawling ocean,
While souls are bartered, reaped, and set to go.
Ye merchants clad in silk, with hands so clean,
Ye build your towers on their breaking bones—
Their blood anoints the wealth ye hold serene,
Their whispered pleas drowned out by market tones.

V

“Go ask the mothers,” say ye, “where they wander,
Those little ones who vanish in the night?”
But mothers weep where shadows grow and ponder,
Their empty arms a testament to fright.
The trafficker’s snare, a web of cunning spun,
Has torn the babe from breast, the child from kin,
And left behind a silence cold as stone—
A grief too vast for mortal hearts to win.

VI

They toil unseen in fields of bitter harvest,
Or sweat in dens where light has never crept,
Their bodies bent, their spirits pushed the farthest,
While captors count the profits they have reaped.
No Sabbath rest, no hymn to lift their care,
No gentle hand to wipe their tears away—
The whip, the chain, the hollow-eyed despair,
Are all they know from dusk to dreary day.

VII

And yet ye say, “The world is fair and golden,
The sun doth shine on all beneath its ray!”
But what of those in darkness, bought and solden,
Whose sun was stolen ere it reached midday?
The pretty popular shells of wealth and might,
Parade their gleam to blind the righteous eye—
Yet beneath their sheen lies trafficking’s cruel blight,
A truth ye shun while captives still decry.

VIII

“Go play,” ye bid the free, “the fields are calling,
The brooks are bright, the flowers sweet with dew!”
But oh, the captive hears no lark enthralling,
No stream runs free where chains are forged anew.
Their play is labor, endless, bleak, and dire,
Their flowers bloom in dreams they dare not keep—
For every breath is sold to lust’s desire,
And every hope lies buried six feet deep.

IX

The righteous weep, yet hands remain unmoving,
The laws are slow, the courts with mercy shy,
While traffickers in shadows keep their proving,
That flesh is cheap beneath a careless sky.
Oh, brothers, sisters, hear their muted plea,
Their voices rise though bound by iron bands—
Shall freedom sleep while captives cannot flee,
And justice falter in our idle hands?

X

They dream of home, of voices soft and tender,
Of faces lost beyond the sea’s divide,
But waking brings the lash, the cold surrender,
To lives where hope has long since bled and died.
The sea that bears them forth cares not their fate,
Its waves a shroud for souls it cannot save—
How long, O God, must innocence await,
The breaking dawn to shatter chain and grave?

XI

“God sees,” ye say, “and judgment looms eternal,
The wicked fall beneath His holy rod!”
But what of now, this hell so raw and vernal,
Where mortals mock the mercy of their God?
Salvation, the pinnacle of gifts, ye preach,
Yet leave the lost to languish in their strife—
Shall heaven wait while trafficked souls beseech,
And earth denies them breath of freest life?

XII

Oh, turn your eyes from gold and fleeting pleasures,
Unstop your ears to hear their anguished strain,
For every soul ye save is worth the measures,
To break the yoke and loose the captive’s chain.
The gospel bids us love, the truth to seek,
To bear the cross for those in bondage torn—
Rise up, ye strong, defend the frail and weak,
Lest ye forget the sorrow they have borne.

XIII

Do ye hear the voices weeping, oh, my brothers,
From holds of steel, from brothels dark and drear?
Their cry ascends, a call to rouse the others,
To free the bound, to dry the captive’s tear.
Let not their blood stain hands that could have freed,
Let not their chains outlast our will to fight—
For grace and mercy bid us intercede,
Till trafficking’s long night gives way to light.