three words to speak
"We will it," and what is the foreman
but the dream strong wakened and weak?
'Oh, why and for what are we waiting, while
our brothers droop and die?
And on every wind of the heavens, a
wasted life goes by.
'How long shall they reproach us, where
crowd on crowd they dwell
Poor ghosts of the wicked city,
gold crushed, hungry hell?
'Through squalid life they laboured in
sordid grief they died
Those sons of a mighty mother, those
props of England's pride.
They are gone, there is none can undo
it, nor save our souls from the curse,
But many a million cometh, and shall
they be better or worse?

'It is We must answer and hasten and open wide the door,
For the rich man's hurrying terror, and the slow foot hope of
the poor,
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched and their unlearned
discontent,
We must give it voice and wisdom, till the waiting tide be
spent
Come then since all things call us, the living and the dead,
And o'er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed.'

As Barrington descended from the Pulpit and walked back to his
accustomed seat, a loud shout of applause burst from a few men in the
crowd, who stood up and waved their caps and cheered again and again.
When order was restored, Philpot rose and addressed the meeting:

'Is there any gentleman wot would like to ask the Speaker a question?'

No one spoke and the Chairman again put the question without obtaining
any response, but at length one of the new hands who had been 'taken
on' about a week previously to replace another painter who had been
sacked for being too slow--stood up and said there was one point that
he would like a little more information about. This man had two
patches on the seat of his trousers, which were also very much frayed
and ragged at the bottoms of the legs: the lining of his coat was all
in rags, as were also the bottoms of the sleeves; his boots were old
and had been many times mended and patched; the sole of one of them had
begun to separate from the upper and he had sewn these parts together
with a few stitches of copper wire. He had been out of employment for
several weeks and it was evident from the pinched expression of his
still haggard face that during that time he had not had