Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie —
Dust unto dust —
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;

Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell —
Too strong to strive —
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;

But rather mourn the apathetic throng —
The cowed and the meek —
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!

Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961) American writer, artist and labor activist

“Mourn Not the Dead” in Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin (1922)