LABOUR! Labour! Labour!-Toil! Toil! Toil!
With the wearing of the bone and the drowning of
the mind;
Sink, like shrivelled parchment, in the flesh-devouring
soil!
Pass away unheeded, like the waving of the wind!
Be the living record of a tyrant’s bloody fame;
Form the trodden pathway for a conqueror’s career;
Give your breath, ye millions! to elevate his name,
And die!-when ye have shouted it till centuries shall
hear.
“By right divine we rule ye.-God made ye but for us-“
Thus cry the lords of nations to the slaves whom they
subdue,
Unclasp God’s book of nature: its writings read not thus.
Hear! Tramplers on the many!-Hear! Benders to the
few!
God gave us hearts of ardour,-God gave us noble
forms,
And God has poured around us his paradise of light;
Has he bade us sow the sunshine, and only reap the
storms?
Created us in glory, to pass away in night?
No! say the sunny heavens, that smile on all alike;
The waves, that upbear navies, yet hold them in their
thrall;
No! shouts the dreadful thunder, that teaches us to
strike
The proud, for one usurping what the Godhead meant
for all.
No! no!-we cry, united by our sufferings’ mighty length,-
Ye-ye have ruled for ages-now we will rule as well;
No! No!-we cry, triumphant in our right’s resistless
strength,
We-we will share your heaven-or ye shall share our
hell!
(Ernest Jones)
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