“WHY!”
“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,
We the same course keep.
Where go all the gains? Well,
It must be confessed,
First the landlords take the rent,
And the masters take the rest.
What do we produce for it?
Gentlemen!—and then
Imitation snobs who’d be
Like the gentlemen!
“What, is it for such as these
That we suffer thus?
Fuddle-brained and vicious fools,
Vermin venomous?
“What, is that why on the top
Creeps that Royal Louse,
The prince of pheasants and cigars,
Of ballet-girls and grouse?”
Yes, that’s why, my Christian friends,
They slave and slaughter us.
England is made a dunghill that
Some bugs may breed and buzz.
A VISITOR IN THE CAMP.
To Mary Robinson. [27]
“What, are you lost, my pretty little lady?
This is no place for such sweet things as you.
Our bodies, rank with sweat, will make you sicken,
And, you’ll observe, our lives are rank lives too.”
“Oh no, I am not lost! Oh no, I’ve come here
(And I have brought my lute, see, in my hand),
To see you, and to sing of all you suffer
To the great world, and make it understand!”
“Well, say! If one of those who’d robbed you thousands,
Dropped you a sixpence in the gutter where
You lay and rotted, would you call her angel,
For all her charming smile and dainty air?”
“Oh no, I come not thus! Oh no, I’ve come here
With heart indignant, pity like a flame,
To try and help you!”—“Pretty little lady,
It will be best you go back whence you came.”
“‘Enthusiasms’ we have such little time for!
In our rude camp we drill the whole day long.
When we return from out the serried battle,
Come, and we’ll listen to your pretty song!”
“LORD LEITRIM.”
My Lord, at last you have it! Now we know
Truth’s not a phrase, justice an idle show.
Your life ran red with murder, green with lust.
Blood has washed blood clean, and, in the final dust
Your carrion will be purified. Yet, see,
Though your body perish, for your soul shall be
An immortality of infamy!