January 1. —
Thus saith the Lord: You weary me
With prayers and waste your own short years;
Eternal Truth you cannot see
Who weep and shed your sight in tears!
In vain you wait and watch the skies,
No better fortune thus will fall
Up from your knees I bid you rise,
And claim the Earth for All.
— GERALD MASSEY, The Earth for All, in My Lyrical Life, Second Series, page 232.
And claim the Earth for All!!
PostScript (added January 16): This poem also appears in a collection entitled Songs of Freedom, assembled by Henry Stephens Salt.
Here's the full poem, and a few others from "My Lyrical Life", published in 1889:
THE EARTH FOR ALL.
Thus saith the Lord: You weary me
With prayers, and waste your own short years:
Eternal Truth you cannot see
Who weep, and shed your sight in tears!
In vain you wait and watch the skies,
No better fortune thus will fall;
Up from your knees I bid you rise,
And claim the Earth for All.
They ate up Earth, and promised you
The Heaven of an empty shell!
'Twas theirs to say; 'twas yours to do,
On pain of everlasting Hell!
They rob and leave you helplessly
For help of Heaven to cry and call:
Heaven did not make your misery;
The Earth was given for All!
Behold in bonds your Mother Earth;
The rich man's prostitute and slave!
Your Mother Earth, that gave you birth,
You only own her for a grave!
Your Mother left a fettered thrall?
Nay! live like Men and set her free
As Heritage for All!
THE LORDS OF LAND AND MONEY.
Lift up your faces from the sod;
Frown with each furrowed brow;
Gold apes a mightier power than God,
And wealth is worshipped now!
In all these toil-ennobled lands
You have no heritage;
They snatch the fruit of Youthful hands,
The staff from weary Age.
O tell them in their Palaces,
These Lords of Land and Money—
They shall not kill the Poor like Bees,
To rob them of Life's honey.
Through long dark years of blood and tears,
We've toiled like branded Slaves,
Till Wrong's red hand hath made a land
Of Paupers, Prisons, Graves!
But our long-sufferance endeth now;
Within the souls of men
The fruitful buds of promise blow,
And Freedom lives again!
O tell them in their Palaces,
These Lords of Land and Money!
They shall not kill the Poor like Bees,
To rob them of Life's honey.
Too long have Labour's Nobles knelt
Before factitious "Rank ";
Within our souls the iron is felt—
In tune our fetters clank!
A glorious voice goes throbbing forth
From millions stirring now,
Who yet before these Gods of earth
Shall stand with lifted brow,
And tell them in their Palaces,
These Lords of Land and Money!
They shall not kill the Poor like Bees,
To rob them of Life's honey.
A CRY OF THE UNEMPLOYED.
'Tis hard to be a wanderer through this bright world of ours,
Beneath a sky of smiling blue, on fragrant paths of flowers,
With music in the woods, as there were nought but pleasure known,
Or Angels walked Earth's solitudes, and yet with want to groan:
To see no beauty in the stars, nor in Earth's welcome smile,
To wander cursed with misery ! willing, but cannot toil.
With burning sickness at my heart, I sink down famished:
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer: I would that I were dead!
Heaven droppeth down with manna still in many a golden shower,
And feeds the leaves with fragrant breath, with silver dew the flower.
Honey and fruit for Bee and Bird, with bloom laughs out the tree,
And food for all God's happy things; but none gives food to me.
Earth, wearing plenty for a crown, smiles on my aching eye,
The purse-proud,—swathed in luxury,—disdainful pass me by:
I've willing hands, an eager heart—but may not work for bread!
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer: I would that I were dead!
Gold, art thou not a blessed thing, a charm above all other,
To shut up hearts to Nature's cry, when brother pleads with brother?
Hast thou a music sweeter than the voice of loving-kindness?
No! curse thee, thou'rt a mist 'twixt God and men in outer blindness.
"Father, come back!" my Children cry; their voices, once so sweet,
Now pierce and quiver in my heart! I cannot, dare not meet
The looks that make the brain go mad, for dear ones asking bread—
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer: I would that I were dead!
Lord! what right have the poor to wed? Love's for the gilded great:
Are they not formed of nobler clay, who dine off golden plate?
Tis the worst curse of Poverty to have a feeling heart:
Why can I not, with iron grasp, choke out the tender part?
I cannot slave in yon Bastille! I think 'twere bitterer pain,
To wear the Pauper's iron within, than drag the Convict's chain.
I'd work but cannot, starve I may, but will not beg for bread:
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer: I would that I were dead!
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