Alton Locke’s Song: 1848
By Charles Kingsley
Weep, weep, weep and weep
For pauper, dolt and slave!
Hark! from wasted moor and fen
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men—
Work! or the grave!
Down, down, down and down,
With idler, knave, and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will not live by toil
Has no right on English soil!
God’s word’s our warrant!
Up, up, up and up!
Face your game and play it!
The night is past, behold the sun!
The idols fall, the lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
Who shall stay it?
By G. Bernard Shaw
Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the Rich is Uselessness.
By Robert G. Ingersoll
(American lawyer and lecturer, 1883-1899)
Whoever produces anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced.