Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?

These lines open Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “The Cry of the Children,” written in response to public revelations about the exploitation of child labor in Britain during the early Victorian industrial era. The poem was published in 1843, amid intense debate over factory and mine conditions and the push for reform legislation. Browning draws on contemporary reports and parliamentary investigations into the long hours, dangerous work, and physical debilitation endured by working children. Addressing “my brothers,” she appeals to adult moral responsibility and Christian conscience, framing the children’s suffering as a national scandal demanding compassion and action.

The speaker asks listeners to attend to a sound society prefers to ignore: children weeping before they have even reached the age when sorrow is expected. The rhetorical question and direct address (“O my brothers”) turn private grief into a public indictment, implying collective complicity. By stressing that the crying comes “ere the sorrow comes with years,” Browning highlights a moral inversion: childhood, associated with innocence and play, has been prematurely burdened by adult hardship. The lines set the poem’s larger argument that industrial “progress” is hollow if it is purchased with the bodies and spirits of children.