DIALOGUE BETWEEN AUGUSTE COMTE AND THE LABOURER

Comte:
All men are one another’s limbs,
The leaves and stems
Of one big tree.
If man’s brain is the seat
Of intellect and if his feet
Trail on the ground,
This is because they both are bound
By Nature’s ineluctable decree.
One man commands, another works, both born
To it. A Mahmud cannot do
The work of an Ayaz.
Do you not see it is because
Work is divided between you
That life becomes a garden, with both rose and thorn?

The Labourer:
Philosopher, you cheat me when you say
That I can never break my way
Out of this magic circle that you weave.
You pass base brass for gold,
And teach me to resign myself to fate!
With my pickaxe I excavate
Long waterways in which I hold
The very ocean prisoner, and retrieve
Milk and honey from Nature’s stores.
Purveyor of strange subtleties,
You give poor Kohkan’s prize, for all his sores,
To the idle, rich and sly Parvez.
Do not try passing wrong for right
With your philosophy.
You cannot dupe a Khizar’s sight
With a mirage’s trickery.
The capitalist, with nothing to do but
Eat and sleep, is a burden on this earth,
Which thieves because of those who work on it.
Do you not know this idler is a thief by birth?
The crime that he exists you want excused.
With all your wisdom you have been bemused.