The Truth.

Come then, let us at least know what's the truth. Let us not blink our eyes and say We did not understand; old age or youth Benumbed our sense or stole our sight away.

It is a lie--just that, a lie--to declare That wages are the worth of work. No; they are what the Employer wills to spare To let the Employee sheer starvation shirk.

They're the life-pittance Competition leaves, The least for which brother'll slay brother. He who the fruits of this hell-strife receives, He is a thief, an assassin, and none other!

It is a lie--just that, a lie--to declare That Rent's the interest on just gains. Rent's the thumb-screw that makes the worker share With him who worked not the produce of his pains.

Rent's the wise tax the human tape-worm knows. The fat he takes; the life-lean leaves. The holy Landlord is, as we suppose, Just this--the model of assassin-thieves!

What is the trick the rich-man, then, contrives? How play my lords their brilliant roles?-- They live on the plunder of our toiling lives, The degradation of our bodies and souls!

TO THE SONS OF LABOUR.

Grave this deep in your hearts, Forget not the tale of the past! Never, never believe That any will help you, or can, Saving only yourselves! What have the gentlemen done, Peerless haters of wrong, Byrons and Shelleys, what? They stand great famous names, Demi-gods to their own, Shadows far off, alien To us and ours for ever. Those who love them and hate The crime, the injustice they hated, What can they do but shout, Win a name from our woes, And leave us just as we were? No, but resolutely turned, Our wants, our desires made clear, And clear the means that shall win them, Drill and drill and drill! Then when the day is come, When the royal battle-flag's up, When blood has been spilled in vain In timid half-hearted war, Then let the Cromwell rise, The simple, the true-souled man; Then let Grant come forth, The calm, the determined comrade, But deep in their hearts one hate, Deep in their souls one thought, To bring the iniquity low, To make the People free! Ah, for such as these We with the same heart-hate, We with the same soul-thought, Will fall to our destined places In the ranks of the great New Model, In the Army that sees ahead Marston, Naseby, Whitehall, The Wilderness, Petersburg,--yes, But beyond the blood and the smoke, Beyond the struggle and death, The Union victorious safe, The Commonwealth glorious free!

TO THE ARTISTS.

You tell me these great lords have raised up Art: I say they have degraded it. Look you, When ever did they let the poet sing, The painter paint, the sculptor hew and cast, The music raise her heavenly voice, except To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men? Behold our English poets that were poor Since these great lords were rich and held the state: Behold the glories of the German land, Poets, musicians, driven, like them, to death Unless they'd tune their spirits' harps to play Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer. Go to, no Art was ever noble yet, Noble and high, the speech of godlike men, When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers. All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best, Comes from the Galilean peasant's hut, comes from The Stratford village, the Ayrshire plough, the shop That gave us Chaucer, the humble Milton's trade-- Bach's, Mozart's, great Beethoven's,--And these are they Who knew the People, being what they knew! Go to, if in the future years no strain, No picture of earth's glory like to what Your Artists raised for that small clique or this Of supercilious imbecilities-- O if no better demi-gods of Art Can rise save those whose barbarous tinsel yet Makes hideous all the beauty of old homes-- Then let us seek the comforts of despair In democratic efforts dead and gone: Weep with Pheideian Athens, sigh an hour With Raffaelle's Florence, beat the head and breast O'er Shakspere's England that from Milton's took In lips the name that leaped from lead and flame From out her heart against the Spanish guns!