CHANTS OF LABOR

Maoriland Worker, Volume 10, Issue 448, 8 October 1919, Page 1

CHANTS OF LABOR

SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay you low? Wherefore weav© with toil and care, The rich robes your tyrants wear? Wherefor© feed, and clothe, and cave, From the cradle to the grave. Those ungrateful drones wlit. would Drain your sweat —nay drink your blood? Wherefore, Bees of England, forge, Many a weapon, chain, and scourg©. That these sting-ess drones may spoil The forced produce of your toil? Hay© ye leisure, comfort, calm. Shelter, food, love'a gentle balm ? Or wi-a-fc is it ye buy bo dear With your pain and with you. fear? The seed ye cow, another reaps; Th© wealth ye find, auotlwr* keeps; Th© Tob©s y© weave, another wear*; The _rm_ y« forge, another bears. Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; In balls ye deck, another dwells. IVhy shake the chains y© wrought? Ye se© The steel ye tempered glanc© on yeWith plough and epade, and hoe unci loom. Trace your grave, and build your tomb, And weav© your winding-sheet, till fair J2ngdand be your sepulchre. —Percy Bysshe Shelley. Tbs author of this Song to th© Men of England was cm 8 of th©- greatest. poetg England ever produced, a uighaouled idealist and philanthropist, whose works, both in poetry arid prose, are well worth study. Th© naked truth o_ the state of En.p rf bis day j r —f and our«. $* i'tc-ral '"'slavery of 1; - ;he "working-c/asi, and th© tyranny ©f ; ;he drones, was never more truly and i forcibly expressed than in these simple lines, which ar© as applicable to th© Stat© of the Old Country to-day as when thej wer© written, a century ago. How long, O Lord, how long!