“O my sister, take me, kill me!
I am one of those who once
Only cared to feast and fill me
On these robbed and murdered ones.
“Kill me? Nay, but love me; listen.
I have too a gospel word,
Fit to make still, dull eyes glisten,
And, like Christ’s, it brings a sword!
“No, Christ is not deaf nor blind;
He’s but dust in Syrian ground,
And his Father has declined
To a parson’s phrase, a sound.
“Not by such, then, but by us
These hell-wrongs must be redressed.
Take this morsel venomous;
Nourish it within your breast.
“You must live on, live and hate;
Conquer wrath, despair and pain;
For “we bid you hope” and wait
Till the Red Flag flies again:
“Till once more the people rise,
Once more, once and only once,
Blood-red hands and blazing eyes
Of the robbed and murdered ones!
“So good night, dear desperate heart.
(Nay, ’tis sun-bright day we keep.)
Soon we meet, though now we part.
Kiss me . . . Take it . . . Go and sleep!”
“THE TRUTH.”
Come then, let us at least know what’s the truth.
Let us not blink our eyes and say
We did not understand; old age or youth
Benumbed our sense or stole our sight away.
It is a lie—just that, a lie—to declare
That wages are the worth of work.
No; they are what the Employer wills to spare
To let the Employee sheer starvation shirk.