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 battleflag'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!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
Added by Poetry Lover
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