The dark, satanic mills of Blake
how much more darker and more satanic they are now!
But oh, the streams that stream white-faced, in and out,
in and out when the hooter hoots, white-faced, with a dreadful gush
of multitudinous ignominy,
what shall we think of these?
They are millions to my one!
They are millions to my one! But oh
what have they done to you, white-faced millions
mewed and mangled in the mills of man?
What have they done to you, what have they done to you,
what is this awful aspect of man?
Oh Jesus, didn’t you see, when you talked of service
this would be the result!
When you said: Retro me, Satanas!
this is what you gave him leave to do
behind your back!
And now, the iron has entered into the soul
and the machine has entangled the brain, and got it fast,
and steel has twisted the loins of man, electricity has exploded the heart
and out of the lips of people jerk strange mechanical noises in place of speech.
What is man, that thou art no longer mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou pitiest him not?
Are these no longer men, these millions, millions?
What are they then?