The Lark Poem by Ruth Brown

The lark rises from the murdered earth
His sweet song fills the polluted air
He nests in that soot blackened grass
Under that charred and stunted bush he has his home.
Tall chimneys have risen above the green land
Belching black smoke and fumes into the blue sky
Factories sprawl along the river bank
Loaded coal trucks crawl across the fields.

Prosperity has come to our fair land
We leave our ploughs and hoes
And join the mass on the road
The human stream thet pours through iron gates.
Into a reinforced concrete mould.
Where men are become hands
Slaves of a relentless steelmaster.
The craftsman feeds the hungry mouth
With stiffening fingers and dulling mind,
The ploughboy breathes the over-heated air
And pallor gathers under his tan.