bid you hope" and wait
Till the Red Flag flies again:

"Till once more the people rise,
Once more, once and only once,
Blood-red hands and blazing eyes
Of the robbed and murdered ones!

"So good night, dear desperate heart.
(Nay, 'tis sun-bright day we keep.)
Soon we meet, though now we part.
Kiss me . . . Take it . . . Go and sleep!"

"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 tim