Songs of the Army of the Night Part 17

A STORY.

(_For the Irish Delegates in Australia_.)

Do you want to hear a story With a n.o.bler praise than "glory,"

Of a man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like h.e.l.l?

Then, that story let me tell you Once again, though it as well you Know as I-the splendid story of the man they call Parnell!

By the wayside of the nations, Lashed with whips and execrations, Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying, she, the Maiden Nation, lay; And the burthen of dishonour Weighed so grievously upon her That her very children hid their eyes and crept in shame away.

And there as she was lying Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying, All her high-born foes came round her, fleering, jeering, as they said: "What is freedom fought and won for?

She is dead! She's down and done for!"

And her weeping children shuddered as they crouched and whispered: "Dead!"

Then suddenly up-starting, All that throng before him parting, See, a man with firm step breaking through that central knot that gives; And, as by some dear lost sister, He knelt down, and softly kissed her, And he raised his pale, proud face, and cried: "She is not dead. She lives!

"O she lives, I say, and I here, I am come to fight and die here For the love my heart has for her like a slow consuming fire; For the love of her low lying, For the hatred deep, undying Of the robber lords who struck and stabbed and trod her in the mire!"

Then upon that cry bewildering, Some of them, her hapless children- In their hearts there leaped up hope like light when night gives birth to day; And, as mocks and threats defied him, One by one they came beside him, Till they stood, a band of heroes, sombre, desperate, at bay!

And the battle that they fought there, And the bitter truth they taught there To the blinded Sister-Nation suffering grievously alway, All the wrong and rapine past hers, Of her lords and her task masters, Is not this the larger hope of all as night gives birth to day!

For the lords and liars are quaking At the People's stern awaking From their slumber of the ages; and the Peoples slowly rise, And with hands locked tight together, One in heart and soul for ever, Watch the sun of Light and Liberty leap up into the skies!

That's the story, that's the story With a n.o.bler praise than "glory,"

Of the Man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like h.e.l.l, And with calm, proud exultation Bade her stand at last a nation, Ireland, Ireland that is one name with the name of Charles Parnell!

AT THE INDIA DOCKS.

A MEMORY OF AUGUST, 1883.

[The spectacle of the life of the London Dock labourers is one of the most terrible examples of the logical outcome of the present social system. In the six great metropolitan docks over 100,000 men are employed, the great bulk of whom are married and have families. By the elaborate system of sub-contracts their wages have been driven down to 4d., 3d., and even 2d. for the few hours they are employed, making the average weekly earnings of a man amount to 7, 6, and even 5 shillings a week! Hundreds and hundreds of lives are lost or ruined every year by the perilous nature of the work, and absolutely without compensation.

Yet so fierce is the compet.i.tion that men are not unfrequently maimed or even killed in the desperate struggles at the gates for the tickets of employment, guaranteeing a "pay" which often does not amount to more than a few pence! The streets and houses inhabited by this unfortunate cla.s.s are of the lowest kind-haunts of vice, disease, and death, and the monopolistic companies are thus directly able to profit by their wholesale demoralization by ruthlessly crushing out, through the contractors, all efforts at organisation on the part of the men. To see these immense docks, the home of that more immense machine, British Commerce, crowded with huge and stately ships, steamers, and sailors the first in the world, and to watch with intelligent eyes by what means the colossal work of loading and unloading them is carried out; this is to face a sacrificial orgy of human life-childhood, youth, manhood, womanhood, and age, with everything that makes them beautiful and enn.o.bling, and not merely a misery and a curse-far more appalling than any Juggernaut progress or the human holocausts that were offered up to Moloch.]

I stood in the ghastly gleaming night by the swollen, sullen flow Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and Woe; And mine eyes were heavy with sleepless hours, and dry with desperate grief, And my brain was throbbing and aching, and mine anguish had no relief.

For never a moment-no; not one-through all the dreary day, And thro' all the weary night forlorn, would the pitiless pulses stay Of the thundering great Machinery that such insistence had, As it crushed out human hearts and souls, that it slowly drove me mad.

And there, in the dank and foetid mist, as I, silent and tearless, stood, And the river's exhalations, sweating forth their muddy blood, Breathed full on my face and poisoned me, like the slow, putrescent drain That carries away from the shambles the refuse of flesh and brain- There rose up slowly before me, in the dome of the city's light, A vast and shadowy Substance, with shafts and wheels of might, Tremendous, ruthless, fatal; and I knew the visible shape Of that thundering great Machinery from which there was no escape.

It stood there high in the heavens, fronting the face of G.o.d, And the spray it sprinkled had blasted the green and flowery sod All round where, through stony precincts, its Cyclopean pillars fell To its adamantine foundations that were fixed in the womb of h.e.l.l.

And the birds that, wild and whirling, and moth-like, flew to its glare Were struck by the flying wheel-spokes, and maimed and murdered there; And the dust that swept about its black panoply overhead, And the din of it seemed to shatter and scatter the sheeted dead.

But mine eyes were fixed on the people that sought this horrible den, And they mounted in thronged battalions, children and women and men, Right out from the low horizons, more far than the eye could see, From the north and the south and the east and the west, they came perpetually- Some silent, some raving, some sobbing, some laughing, some cursing, some crying, Some alone, some with others, some struggling, some dragging the dead and the dying Up to the central Wheel enormous with its wild devouring breath That winnowed the livid smoke-clouds and the sickening fume of death.

Then suddenly, as I watched it all, a keen wind blew amain, And the air grew clearer and purer, and I could see it plain- How under the central Wheel a black stone Altar stood, And a great, gold Idol upon it was gleaming like fiery blood.

And there, in front of the Altar, was a huge, round lurid Pit, And the thronged battalions were marching to the yawning mouth of it In the clangour of the Machinery and the Wheel's devouring breath That winnowed the livid smoke-clouds and the sickening fume of death.

And once again as I gazed there, and the keen wind still blew on, I saw the shape of the Idol like a king turned carrion, Yet crowned and more terrific thus for his human fleshly loss, And with one clenched hand he brandished a lash, and the other held up a cross!

And all around the Altar were seated, joyous and free, In garments richly-coloured and choice, a goodly company, Eating and drinking and wantoning, like G.o.ds that scorned to know Of the thundering great Machinery and the crowds and the Pit below.

Ah, Christ! the sights and the sounds there that every hour befell Would wring the heart of the devils spinning ropes of sand in h.e.l.l, But not the insolent Revellers in their old lascivious ease- Children hollow-eyed, starving, consumed alive with disease; Boys and men tortured to fiends and branded with shuddering fire; Girls and women shrieking caught, and wh.o.r.ed, and trampled to death in the mire; Babyhood, youth, and manhood and womanhood that might have been, Kneaded, a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp, to feed the gold-grinding murderous Machine!

And still, with aching eyeb.a.l.l.s, I stared at that hateful sight, At the long dense lines of the people and the shafts and wheels of might, When slowly, slowly emerging, I saw a great Globe rise, Blood-red on the dim horizon, and it swam up into the skies.

But whether indeed it were the sun or the moon, I could not say, For I knew not now in my watching if it were night or day.

But when that Great Globe steadied above the central Wheel, The thronged battalions wavered and paused, and an awful silence fell.

Then (I know not how, but so it was) in a moment the flash of an eye- A murmur ran and rose to a voice, and the voice to a terrible cry: "Enough, enough! It has had enough! We will march no more till we drop In the furnace Pit. Give us food! Give us rest! Though the accursed Machinery stop!"

And then, with a shout of angry fear, the Revellers sprang to their feet, And the call was for cannon and cavalry, for rifle and bayonet.

And one rose up, a leader of them, lifting a threatening rod.

And "Stop the Machinery!" he yelled, "you might as well stop G.o.d!"

But the terrible thunder-cry replied: "If this indeed must be, It is YOU should be cast to the furnace Pit to feed the Machine-not WE!"

And the central Wheel enormous slowed down in groaning plight, And all the aerial movement ceased of the shafts and wheels of might, And a superhuman clamour leaped madly to where overhead The great Globe swung in the gathering gloom, portentous, huge, blood-red!

But my brain whirled round and my blinded eyes no more could see or know, Till I struggling seemed to awake at last by the swollen, sullen flow Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and Woe!

DIRGE.

(_Brisbane_.) "_A little Soldier of the Army of the Night_."

Bury him without a word!

No appeal to death; Only the call of the bird And the blind spring's breath.

Nature slays ten, yet the one Reaches but to a part Of what's to be done, to be sung.

Keep we a proud heart!

Let us not glose her waste With lies and dreams; Fawn on her wanton haste, Say it but seems.

Comrades, with faces unstirred, Scorning grief's dole, Though with him, with him lies interred Our heart and soul,

Bury him without a word!

No appeal to death; Only the call of the bird And the blind spring's breath.

TO QUEEN VICTORIA IN ENGLAND.

AN ADDRESS ON HER JUBILEE YEAR.

Madam, you have done well! Let others with praise unholy, Speech addressed to a woman who never breathed upon earth, Daub you over with lies or deafen your ears with folly, I will praise you alone for your actual imminent worth.

Madam, you have done well! Fifty years unforgotten Pa.s.s since we saw you first, a maiden simple and pure.

Now when every robber landlord, capitalist rotten, Hated oppressors, praise you-Madam, we are quite sure!

Never once as a foe, open foe, to the popular power, As n.o.bler kings and queens, have you faced us, fearless and bold: No, but in backstairs fashion, in the stealthy twilight hour, You have struggled and struck and stabbed, you have bartered and bought and sold!

Melbourne, the listless liar, the gentleman blood-beslavered, Disraeli, the faithless priest of a cynical faith out-worn, These were dear to your heart, these were the men you favoured.

Those whom the People loved were fooled and flouted and torn!