The People Are the Masters of Life

The people are the masters of life: the people, the people!
So I go about in the streets of cities singing with glad assurance, the people, the people! —
Needing no reasons for my great joy beyond the reasons in my own heart,
Not asserting myself in dubious words, not being afraid,
Letting the dissenters and scorners have their unhindered way with themselves,
I for my part figuring life out into magnificent totals of love,
Being satisfied not to shine alone in grandeur somewhere off from the crowd,
Mixing up day by day with the common run of men populating the towns and farms,
Shining if they shine in their illumination or being lost if they are lost in the average measures of worth.

So I go about singing my triumphant song:
The people are the masters of life: the people, the people!
And though nobody hears my voice I hear it myself,
And though those hearing my voice dont echo it I echo it myself,
And though some are displeased telling me to stop my noise, I am pleased with myself and cry out louder than ever:
It gives me such joy, I cry out without intermission so all may know what I have to say,
And when the people themselves for whom I sing ridicule me I still sing my song for them —
My song, their song, which they not singing make it my double duty to proclaim:
The people are the masters of life: the people, the people!
The people are the masters of life: the people, the people!
So I go round everywhere filling the world with my song,
Tantalizing the ears of the leaders with my troublesome victorious psalm,
Calling them all off their pedestals to the ground, tumbling all their superiorities in a heap,
Compelling the lords of rule to produce their charts — refusing any longer to take them for granted:
Seeing them gather in resentful array shaking their self-crowned heads.

Who are the masters of life?
The judge comes: he brings crime: he says: The laws are the masters of life!
The statesman comes: he brings the legislature: he says: Constitutions are the masters of life!
The painter comes: he brings his pictures: he says: The arts are the masters of life!
The chemist comes from his laboratory: his hands are stained: he says: The sciences are the masters of life!
The priest comes from the altar: he brings his bible: he says: The religions are the masters of life:
And so they all come from everywhere shaking their heads handing me their keys —
They all come remembering everything but forgetting the people,
They all come trying to drown my voice in the clamor of dissuading tongues,
Even the people themselves come explaining themselves away, hearing me with alarm —
(O horrible blasphemy: you, the people, the crowd, yourselves, shuddering at my challenge!) —

Listen, you high and mighty lordlings of things and affairs:
I take all your books and properties and precedents and cultures and put them on a pile together,
And I light them with a simple match into a vast flame,
And you stand close by with me and see them all go up in smoke,
With lamentations on your lips you see them go up in smoke —
All your masters of life consumed in a common fire almost in the twinkling of an eye —
And then you look at me wondering what now is to come to the earth.

I will tell you what is to come to the earth, you lordlings of affairs and things:
The same that has always come to the earth will come to the earth again —
Laws again, maybe, and constitutions, and the pride of books:
All that has just burned up before you so casually will come to the earth again and would always come:
For they have always come out of the people, who are the masters of life,
For they do not come making man but they come made by man,
And will always come, and be destroyed, and come again and again —
All the show of the world will come, all the glory and genius of the world will come,
Not out of themselves, not out of things written in a charter or kept in a safe:
No: not that way: they will come out of the people forever:
No: not that way: they will whatever their learning and riches come out of the people whatever their ignorance and poverty forever
I take the sublimest sentence from the loftiest scripture of the race,
I take the simplest old woman from the poorest alley in the metropolis,
And I put them side by side before your eyes and my eyes for us to see,
And I guess you know and I guess I know without further talk who is the master of life.

So I go about singing with glad assurance in the streets of cities,
Needing no reasons for my great joy beyond the reasons in my own heart:
The people are the masters of life: the people, the people!