Chants for Socialists | Page 7

the nations
To look on our beauty, and hearken our glee.
Unlovely of aspect, heart-sick and a-weary
On the season's fair pageant all dim-eyed we gaze;
Of thy fairness we
fashion a prison-house dreary

And in sorrow wear over each day of our days.
THE EARTH.
O children! O toilers, what foemen beleaguer
The House I have built you, the Home I have won?
Full great are my
gifts, and my hands are all eager
To fill every heart with the deeds I have done.
THE WORKERS.
The foemen are born of thy body, O Mother,
In our shape are they shapen, their voice is the same;
And the thought
of their hearts is as ours and no other;
It is they of our own house that bring us to shame.
THE EARTH.
Are ye few? Are they many? What words have ye spoken
To bid your own brethren remember the Earth?
What deeds have ye
done that the bonds should be broken,
And men dwell together in good-will and mirth?
THE WORKERS.
They are few, we are many: and yet, O our Mother,
Many years were we wordless and nought was our deed,
But now the
word flitteth from brother to brother:
We have furrowed the acres and scattered the seed.
THE EARTH.

Win on then unyielding, through fair and foul weather,
And pass not a day that your deed shall avail.
And in hope every
spring-tide come gather together
That unto the Earth ye may tell all your tale.
Then this shall I promise, that I am abiding
The day of your triumph, the ending of gloom,
And no wealth that ye
will then my hand shall be hiding
And the tears of the spring into roses shall bloom.
MAY DAY, 1894
Clad is the year in all her best,
The land is sweet and sheen;
Now Spring with Summer at her breast,
Goes down the meadows green.
Here are we met to welcome in
The young abounding year,
To praise what she would have us win
Ere winter draweth near.
For surely all is not in vain,
This gallant show she brings;
But seal of hope and sign of gain,
Beareth this Spring of springs.
No longer now the seasons wear
Dull, without any tale
Of how the chain the toilers bear
Is growing thin and frail.

But hope of plenty and goodwill
Flies forth from land to land,
Nor any now the voice can still
That crieth on the hand.
A little while shall Spring come back
And find the Ancient Home
Yet marred by foolish waste and lack,
And most enthralled by some.
A little while, and then at last
Shall the greetings of the year
Be blent with wonder of the past
And all the griefs that were.
A little while, and they that meet
The living year to praise,
Shall be to them as music sweet
That grief of bye-gone days.
So be we merry to our best,
Now the land is sweet and sheen,
And Spring with Summer at her
breast
Goes down the meadows green.
THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND {1}
Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding
With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;
Long lasteth the daylight,
and hope is enfolding
The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying
Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field; Love
mingles with love, and no evil is weighing
On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.
From township to township, o'er down and by tillage
Far, far have we wandered and long was the day,
But now cometh
eve at the end of the village,
Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.
There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us
The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;
The moon's rim is
rising, a star glitters o'er us,
And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt.
Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over
The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea.
Draw closer, my
sweet, we are lover and lover;
This eve art thou given to gladness and me.
Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken:
Three fields further on, as they told me down there,
When the young
moon has set, if the March sky should darken,
We might see from the hill-top the great city's glare.
Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! From London it bloweth,
And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest;
Of power that helps not;
of wisdom that knoweth,

But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best.
Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story
How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide;
And they live
and they die, and the earth and its glory
Has