_I give this Book_
TO YOU,--
_Man or woman_, _girl or boy_, _labourer_, _mechanic_, _clerk_,
_house-servant_, _whoever you may be_, _whose wages are not the worth of
your work_,--_no_, _nor a fraction of it--whose wages are the minimum
which you and those like you_, _pressed by the desire for life in the
dreadful struggle of_ "_Competition_," _will consent to take from your
Employers who_, _thanks to it_, _are able thus to rob you_:--
_I give it to_ YOU,
_in the hope that you may see how you are being robbed_,_--how Capital
that is won by paying you your competition wages is plunder_,_--how Rent
that is won by the increased value of land that is owing to the industry
of us all_, _is plunder_,_--how the Capitalist and Landowner who
over-ride you_, _how the Master or Mistress who work you from morning to
night_, _who domineer over you as servants and despise you_ (_or what is
worse_, _pity you_) _as beggars_, _are the men and women whose sole title
to this is_, _that they have the audacity and skill to plunder you_, _and
you the simplicity and folly not to see it and to submit to it_:--
_I give this Book to_ YOU,
_in the hope that you may at last realize this_, _and in your own fashion
never cease the effort to make your fellow-sufferers realize it_:--
_I give it to_ YOU,
_in the hope that you may formally enrol yourself in the ranks of the
Army of the Night_, _and that you will offer up the best that has been
granted you of heart and soul and mind towards the working out of that
better time when_, _in victorious peace_, _we silence our drums and
trumpets_, _furl our banners_, _drag our cannons to their place of rest_,
_and solemnly disarming ourselves_, _become citizens once more or_, _if
soldiers_, _then soldiers of the Army of the Day_!
SONGS
OF
THE ARMY OF THE NIGHT.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . blessed are the mourners . . .
_Ye are the salt of the earth_."--_The Good tidings as given_ by
MATTHEW.
PROEM.
"OUTSIDE LONDON."
In the black night, along the mud-deep roads,
Amid the threatening boughs and ghastly streams,
Hark! sounds that gird the darknesses like goads,
Murmurs and rumours and reverberant dreams,
Tramplings, breaths, movements, and a little light.--
_The marching of the Army of the Night_!
The stricken men, the mad brute-beasts are keeping
No more their places in the ditches or holes,
But rise and join us, and the women, weeping
Beside the roadways, rise like demon-souls.
Fill up the ranks! What shimmers there so bright?
_The bayonets of the Army of the Night_!
Fill up the ranks! We march in steadfast column,
In wavering lines yet forming more and more;
Men, women, children, sombre, silent, solemn,
Rank follows rank like billows to the shore.
Dawnwards we tramp, towards the day and light.
_On_, _on and up_, _the Army of the Night_!