Cry of the Children

Browning's Cry of the Children comes in an era where child labor is exponentially increasing alongside the Industrial Revoluation. Before, children would work on farms or in shops, but with technology growth, they started to work in factories instead as cheap labor. The urging for working children to "go out, children, from the mine and from the city" and play in the meadows presents the dichotmy of a society once agricultural, now industrial. Youth and life are associated with nature while the cold metal of machines are associated with death. The poem is not only drawing attention to the ghastly conditions of child labor, but also to the shift from nature to machine.

Cry of the Children draws attention to the conditions of child labor, forcing the audience to question society's role in taking away children's innocence. The poem blatantly describes the jaded and hopeless attitudes working children have toward death, God, and life. The ending lines say, "But a child's sob in the silence curses deeper/ Than the strong man in his wrath," indicating that though they are young and unwise, the pain a child endures can be more powerful than the petty vengences of a man. Children have raw emotion due to their inexperience, so they do not understand their pain as much as an adult does, but can feel it deeper than adults. Browning's poem calls for protection for the children and questions the morality of a society that uses children as another stepping stone toward power.