Works

"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...

Man of despair and death,
Bought and slaved in the gangs,
Starved and stripped and left
To the pitiful pitiless night,
Away with your selfish thoughts!
Touch not your ignorant life!...

"Take with all my heart, friend, this,
The labour of my past,
Though the heart here hidden is
And the soul's eternities
Hold the present fast.

"Take it, still, with soul and heart,...

You are at least a man, of men a king.
You have a heart, and with that heart you love.
The race you come from is not gendered of
The filthy sty whose latest litter cling...

"Why is it we toil so?
Where go all the gains?
What do we produce for it,
All our pangs and pains?"

Why it is we toil so,
Is it because, like sheep,
Since our fathers sought the shears,...

(For the Ballarat statue of him.)


This is Scotch William Wallace. It was he
Who in dark hours first raised his face to see:
Who watched the English tyrant nobles spurn,...