A DYING SOCIALIST TO HIS SON

Submitted by AWL on 28 July, 2008 - 4:53 Author: Sean Matgamna

A DYING SOCIALIST TO HIS SON
Their sick old order burgeons, I decline,
"Perspectives" narrowed to a blurred gray line,
Part of nothing big, soon to prevail,
Or, early, thrive: seed-sower, maybe, mail
From a future possibility, perhaps.

What's left? Will, refusing to collapse,
Hate, sustained by the sight of needless pain:
The homeless amidst great wealth, out in the rain,
Huddled, like cattle by a grey stone wall;
Cash-cultured ignorance — lives made small
And narrow, where life might be broad and fine;
Where "ours" in everything bows down to "mine"!

Love, that sees with awe the calm brave eyes
The self-posessed, unquelled query cries,
The uncowed and still unquelled questing gaze
With which a wanted, cherishd child surveys
A too-disordered world, that will reward
The grosser instincts, curb the best, urge toward
Dominion, avarice, false-hearted pride,
Teach love and fellowship to flee and hide.

And Hope, capable of flaring bright and high,
Fostering progeny to challenge the Lie
That rules in the name of truth: class slavery
Decked out in Freedom's purloined finery!

Hope, righteous hate and love that will not die
In this nadir of the cause they all decry;
Hope, for others, and love: for us now — will
To fight life's entrenched tyrants still, until
We've lost the last grim fight, ourselves grown still!
1998

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