Verse

War, hell and hope

The revolutionary socialist newspaper Workers’ Dreadnought (1914-24) published this poem on its front page, heading an article entitled “Soldiers ask what they are fighting for” on 20 October 1917. Britain was over three years into a war which its rulers had initially told their citizens would be “over by Christmas”. By this time, many, many families had lost loved ones, and poverty and hardship were biting at home. Belligerent governments were casually dismissing peace efforts, and it was not even clear what they aimed to achieve or under what conditions they might agree to end the war...

A German soldier’s peace poem

From The Workers’ Dreadnought, 29 June 1918 A poem was found on the dead body of a German soldier. The British authorities reproduced it in facsimile and threw it from aeroplanes into the German lines. Some of the copies were blown into the British lines, and a British soldier who caught one sent it to the New-York-based magazine Flying. The editor of Flying wrote: “Its value for propaganda purposes is a matter of opinion. The sentiment is of the class that Americans describe as ‘mush’.” The Workers’ Dreadnought commented “we disagree with the editor of Flying. This German soldier voices our...

“Government”

Eva Gore-Booth (1870–1926) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and a suffragist and labour movement activist. She was the younger sister of Constance Markiewicz, the nationalist, socialist and feminist who took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and in its aftermath became the first woman elected to the British Parliament, but who, as an Irish republican, refused to take her seat. Eva became politically active before her older sister did, and like Constance, reacted against her privileged background and committed herself to siding with oppressed people and fighting for social change. She spent most...

The First World War: Swear You'll Never Forget (verse)

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of the ways: And the haunted gap in your minds has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you are a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. BUT THE PAST IS JUST THE SAME—AND WAR'S A BLOODY GAME . . . HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? LOOK DOWN, AND SWEAR BY THE SLAIN OF THE WAR THAT YOU'LL NEVER FORGET. Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz— The nights you watched and wired and...

Swear You'll Never Forget (the First world War)

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of the ways: And the haunted gap in your minds has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you are a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. BUT THE PAST IS JUST THE SAME—AND WAR'S A BLOODY GAME . . . HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? LOOK DOWN, AND SWEAR BY THE SLAIN OF THE WAR THAT YOU'LL NEVER FORGET. Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz— The nights you watched and wired and...

Workers of Ireland! (By the author of "The Red Flag")

[To the tune of O'Donnell Abú] Workers of Ireland Jim Connell, author of The Red Flag, published this song in Jim Larkin's paper, the Irish Worker, in 1911. It goes to the tune of O'Donnell Abú Workers of Ireland, why crawl ye like cravens? Why clutch an existence of insult and want? Why stand to be plucked by an army of ravens, Or hoodwinked forever by twaddle and cant? Think on the wrongs ye bear, Think on the rags ye wear, Think on the insults endured from your birth; Toiling in snow and rain Rearing up heaps of gain, All for the tyrants who ground you to earth. Your brains are as keen as...

Workers of Ireland!

[To the tune of O'Donnell Abú] Workers of Ireland Jim Connell, author of The Red Flag, published this song in Jim Larkin's paper, the Irish Worker, in 1911. It goes to the tune of O'Donnell Abú Workers of Ireland, why crawl ye like cravens? Why clutch an existence of insult and want? Why stand to be plucked by an army of ravens, Or hoodwinked forever by twaddle and cant? Think on the wrongs ye bear, Think on the rags ye wear, Think on the insults endured from your birth; Toiling in snow and rain Rearing up heaps of gain, All for the tyrants who ground you to earth. Your brains are as keen as...

The Red Flag

The great anthem of the labour movement, written in 1889 by Jim Connell, a one-time Fenian, on a train journey from Charing Cross to New Cross Gate. The people's flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead, And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, Their hearts blood dyed its every fold. Then raise the scarlet standard high. (chorus) Within its shade we'll live and die, Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here. Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze, The sturdy German chants its praise, In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung Chicago swells the...

The Song of the Classes

We plough and sow—we're so very, very low That we delve in the dirty clay, Till we bless the plain—with the golden grain, And the vale with the fragrant hay Our place we know—we're so very low. 'Tis down at the landlord's feet: We're not too low—the bread to grow, But too low the bread to eat. Down, down we go—we're so very, very low, To the hell of the deep sunk mines, But we gather the proudest gems that glow Where the crown of a despot shines. And whenever he lacks,—upon our backs Fresh loads he deigns to lay: We're far too low to vote the tax, But not too low to pay. We're low—we're low...

Machine Gun

At the gates of the homes, at the gates of the palaces that we have conquered everywhere in the city where the riot drags on cold, dull and strong, everywhere at the doors of our homes the machine-gun in the dark cowers. Dull, to bring death; blind, low, at the base of the earth, blind, cold, of steel, of iron, with the metal of their hate elemental, with their steel teeth ready to bite, their clockwork, wheels, nuts, springs, their short black mouths on the mounts squat ... Oh, the tragic machine, the thing of steel, of iron, inert, which mutilates seconds, which digests seconds — tac-tac-tac...

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