Songs of the Army of the Night Part 15

"Bend and listen, look and tell us!

Are these joyless toilers We?

Slaves more wretched, patient, piteous Than the slaves we fought to free!

"Are these weak, worn girls and women Those whose mothers yet can tell How they kissed and clasped men G.o.d-like With fierce faces fronting h.e.l.l?

"Bend and listen, look and tell us!

Is this silent waste, possessed By bloat thieves and their task-masters, Thy free, thy fair, thy fearless West?

"Are these Eastern mobs of wage-slaves, Are these cringing debauchees, Sons of those who slung their rifles- Shook the old Flag to the breeze?"

THE ANSWER.

"Men and boys, O fathers, brothers, Burst these fetters round you bound!

Women, sisters, wives and mothers, Lift your faces from the ground!

"O Democracy, O People, East and West and North and South, Rise together, one for ever, Strike this Crime upon the mouth!

"Bid them not, the men who loved you, Those who fought for you and died, Scorn you that you broke a small Crime, Left a great Crime pa.s.s in pride!

"England, France, the played-out countries, Let them reek there in their stew, Let their past rot out their present, But the Future is with you!

"O America, O first-born Of the age that yet shall be Where all men shall be as one man, n.o.ble, faithful, fearless, free!-

"O America, O paramour Of the foul slave-owner Pelf, You who saved from slavery others, Now from slavery save yourself!

"Save yourself, though, anguish-shaken, You cry out and bow your head, Crying 'Why am I forsaken?'

Crying 'It is finished!'

"Save yourself, no G.o.d will save you; Not one angel can He give!

They and He are dead and vanished, And 'tis you, 'tis you must live!

"Risen again, fire-tried, victorious, From the grave of Crime down-hurled, Peerless, pure, serene and glorious, Wield the sceptre of the world!"

A FOOL.

(_Brisbane_).

He asked me of my friend-"_a clever man_; _Such various talent_, _business_, _journalism_; _A pen that might some day have sent out_ '_leaders_'

_From our greatest newspapers_."-"Yes, all this, All this," I said.-"_And yet he will not rise_?

_He'll stay a_ "_comp._," _a printer all his life_?"- I said: "Just that, a workman all his life."

But, as my questioner was a business man, One of the sons of Capital, a sage Whose practicality saw I can suppose Quite to his nose-tip even his finger-ends, I vouchsafed explanation. "This young man My friend, was born and bred a workman. All His heart and soul (And men have hearts and souls Other than those the doctor proses of, The parson prates of, and both make their trade) Were centred in his comradeship and love.

His friends, his 'chums', were workmen, and the girl He wooed, and made a happy wife and mother, Had heart and soul like him in whence she sprung.

Observe now! When he came to think and read, He saw (it seemed to him he saw) in what Capitalists, Employers, men like you, Think and call 'justice' in your inter-dealings, Some slight mistakes (I fancy _he'd_ say 'wrongs') Whereby his order suffered. So he wonders: '_Cannot we change this_?' And he tries and tries, Knowing his fellows and adapting all His effort in the channels that they know.

You understand? He's 'only an Unionist!'

Now for the second point. This man believes That these mistakes-these wrongs (we'll pa.s.s the word) Spring from a certain thing called 'compet.i.tion'

Which you (and I) know is a G.o.d-given thing Whereby the fittest get up to the top (That's I-or you) and tread down all the others.

Well, this man sees how by this G.o.d-given thing He has the chance to use his extra wits And clamber up: he sees how others have- (Like you-or me; my father's father's father Was a market-gardener and, I trust, a good one).

He sees, moreover, how perpetually Each of his fellows who has extra wits Has used them as the fox fallen in the well Used the confiding goat, and how the goats More and more wallow there and stupefy, Robbed of the little wit the hapless crowd Had in their general haplessness. Well, then This man of mine (This is against all law, Human, divine and natural, I admit) Prefers to wallow there and not get out, Except they all can! I've made quite a tale About what is quite simple. Yet 'tis curious, As I see you hold. Now frankly tell me, will you, What do you think of him?"-"_He is a fool_!"- "He is a fool? There is no doubt of it!

But I am told that it was some such fool Came once from Galilee, and ended on A criminal's cross outside Jerusalem,- And that this fool, he and his criminal's cross, Broke up an Empire that seemed adamant, And made a new world which, renewed again, Is Europe still.

He is a fool! And it was some such fool Drudged up and down the earth these later years, And wrote a Book the other fools bought up In tens of thousands, calling it a Gospel.

And this fool too, and the fools that follow him, Or hold with him, why, he and they shall all End in the mad-house, or the gutter, where They'll chew the husk of their mad dreams, and die!

For what are their follies but dreams? They have _done_ nothing, And never will! . . .

One moment! I have just a word to say.

How comes it, tell me, friend, six weeks ago A 'comp.' was sent a-packing for a cause His fellows thought unjust, and that same night (Or, rather, the next morning) in comes one To tell you (quite politely) that unless That 'comp.' was setting at his frame, they feared One of our greatest newspapers would not go That day a harbinger of light and leading To gladden and instruct its thousands? And, If I remember right, it did-and so did he, That wretched 'comp.,' set at his frame, and does!

How came it also that three months ago Your brother, the shipowner, "sacked" a man Out of his ship, and bade him go to h.e.l.l?

And in the evening up came two or three, Discreetly asking him to state the cause?

And when he said he'd see them with the other, (Videlicet, in h.e.l.l), they said they feared, Unless the other came thence (if he was there), And was upon his ship to-morrow morning, It would not sail. It did not sail till noon, And he sailed with it!

But this is all beside the point! Our 'comp.,'

Who sweats there, and who will not write you 'leaders'

Except to help a friend who's fallen ill, Why, he, beyond a doubt he is a fool!"

"MOUNT RENNIE." {95}

I.

(_The Australian Press speaks_).

"Kill them! Yes, hang them all!

They are fiends, just that!

And we're all agreed fiends should be sent To a place that's hot.

"They were fiends, too, of themselves; They delighted in it!

It's all their fault, their own fault!

Don't listen a minute!

"Don't let anyone talk About 'fatality,' 'lot,'

That sort of talk (excuse us!) Is just d.a.m.ned rot.

"You and I, p'raps, are what we're made.

If I'm dying of phthisis, It's because my father pa.s.sed on To me what the price is

"Of his excesses, and I, Overworked, come off worse.

Just so; but, with these young fiends, It's quite the reverse.

"Their homes were happy and bright, (All _are_ in Australia).

Their parents were good, kind, wise: No breath of failure

"Can be breathed on their education, Their childhood's surroundings, The healthy training that gives Youth morality's groundings.

"Those people who say That the larrikins come From that G.o.d-spat-out-thing, The Australian 'home'-

"The narrow harsh rule Of base mean parents, Whose played-out ideas drive All of good and of fair thence: