Beneath the iron gates of fate,  
Where hope unravels, thin and frayed,  
We gather meek, our shoulders bent,  
To pay the price our lives have lent.  

The air is thick with whispered cries,  
Of children lost, of mothers' sighs,  
Grey walls rise tall, like silent graves,  
Where dreams are buried, none are saved.  

We wake to bells, a hollow sound,  
Our lives like dust, so tightly bound,  
From dawn to dusk, our hands must toil,  
The years our sweat, the hours our soil.  

A bowl of gruel—no feast, no cheer,  
To hush the pangs that linger near,  
A bed of straw, a tear-soaked night,  
Where shadows dance beyond the light.  

Oh, mercy lost to men of stone,  
Who claim our bodies, make them bone.  
Did they not see our hearts still beat,  
Though broken, worn, and incomplete?  

I watch the young, their faces pale,  
Their laughter caged, their spirits frail.  
A mother weeps; she will not tell,  
What ghosts within these cold walls dwell.  

The workhouse whispers: *"You are naught,  
A lesson hard, the world forgot."*  
But even here, in dark despair,  
I see small flames, though frail, still there.  

A hand that lifts, a quiet smile,  
A kindness that redeems the while.  
For even where the night runs deep,  
A trace of light, the soul will keep.  

And so, though hunger wrings me dry,  
Though workhouse rules my every sigh,  
I dream of fields, of skies so wide,  
And hope, though buried, will not hide.  

For chains may bind, and walls may rise,  
But none can claim the endless skies.