Proletaria
THE SUNNY rounds of Earth contain
An obverse to its Day,
Our fertile Vagrancy’s domain,
Wan Proletaria.
From pole to pole of Poverty
We stumble through the years,
With hazy-lanterned Memory
And Hope that never nears.
Wherever Plenty’s crop invites
Our pitiful brigades,
Lurk cannoneers of Vested Rights,
Juristic ambuscades;
And here hangs Rent, that squalid cage
Within which Mammon thrusts,
Bound with the fetter of a wage,
The helots of his lusts.
With palsied Doubt as guide, we wind
Among the lanes of Need,
Where meagre Hungers scouting find
But slavered baits of Greed.
The wet-lipped Lamias of Caste,
Awaiting our advance,
Our choicest squadrons’ fealty blast
With magic smile and glance:
Delilah-limbed temptations flit
Among our drowsy rows,
And on our willing captains fit
The badges of our foes.
What wonder sometimes if in stealth
Our starker outposts wait,
And, in the prowling eyes of Wealth,
Dash vitriol of Hate;
Or if our Samsons, ere too late,
Their treasons should make good
By whelming in the temple’s fate
Their viper owners’ brood!
Our polyandrous dam has borne
To Satan and to God
The hordes of Night, the clans of Morn,
That through our valleys plod.
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poem by Bernard O'Dowd
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