Works

I.


Dead in the sheep-pen he lies,
Wrapped in an old brown sail.
The smiling blue sea and the skies
Know not sorrow nor wail.

Dragged up out of the hold,
Dead on his last way home,...

Had you lived when a tyrant king
Strove to make all the slaves of one,
With nobles and with churchmen you
Had stood unflinching, pure and true,
To annihilate that hateful thing...

[The spectacle of the life of the London Dock labourers is one of the most terrible examples of the logical outcome of the present social system. In the six great metropolitan docks over 100,000 men are employed, the great bulk...

He sits. Upon the kingly head doth rest
The round-balled wimple, and the heavy rings
Touch on the shoulders where the shadow clings.
The downward garment shows the ambiguous breast;...

Who is it speaks of defeat? -
I tell you a Cause like ours
Is greater than defeat can know;
It is the power of powers!

As surely as the earth rolls round,
As surely as the glorious sun...

Bury him without a word!
No appeal to death;
Only the call of the bird
And the blind spring's breath.

Nature slays ten, yet the one
Reaches but to a part
Of what's to be done, to be sung....

When day's hard task's done,
Eve's scant meal partaken,
Out we steal each one,
Weariless, unshaken.

In small reeking squares,
Garbaged plots, we gather,
Little knots and pairs,...

In the chill grey summer dawn-light
We pass through the empty streets;
The rattling wheels are all silent;
No friend his fellow greets.

Here and there, at the corners,...

"Ah, with torn heart I see them still,
Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
That falls to woman's lot.

"No tangled paths for her to tread...

"Be with us by day, by night,
O lover, O friend;
Hold before us thy light
Unto the end!

"See, all these children of ours
Starved and ill-clad.
Speak to thy heart's lily-flowers,...