The stars shone faint through the smoky blue;
The church-bells were ringing;
Three girls, arms laced, were passing through,
Tramping and singing.
Their heads were bare; their short skirts swung
As they went along;
Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung
Their defiant song.
It was not too clean, their feminine lay,
But it thrilled me quite
With its challenge to task-master villainous day
And infamous night,
With its threat to the robber rich, the proud,
The respectable free.
And I laughed and shouted to them aloud,
And they shouted to me!
"_Girls_, _that's the shout_, _the shout we shall utter_
_When with rifles and spades_,
_We stand_, _with the old Red Flag aflutter_,
_On the barricades_!"
A STREET FIGHT.
(To MR F----.) {38}
Sir, we approve your curling lip and nose
At this vile sight.
These men, these women are brute beasts?--Who knows,
Sir, but that you are right?
Panders and harlots, rogues and thieves and worse,
We are a crew
Whose pitiful plunder's honoured in the purse
Of gentlemen like you.
Whom holy Competition's taught (like us)
"What's thine is mine!"--
_How we must love you who have made us thus_,
_You may perhaps divine_!
IN AN EAST END HOVEL.
TO A WORKMAN, A WOULD-BE SUICIDE.
Man of despair and death,
Bought and slaved in the gangs,
Starved and stripped and left
To the pitiful pitiless night,
Away with your selfish thoughts!
Touch not your ignorant life!
Are there no masters of slaves,
Jeering, cynical, strong--
Are there no brigands (say),
With the words of Christ on their lips
And the daggers under their cloaks--
Is there not one of these
That you can steal on and kill?
O as the Swiss mountaineer
Dogged on the perilous heights
His disciplined conqueror foes: {39a}
Caught up one in his arms
And, laughing exultantly,
Plunged with him to the abyss:
So let it be with you!
An eye for an eye, and a tooth
For a tooth, and a life for a life!
Tell it, this hateful strong
Contemptuous hypocrite world,
Tell it that, if we must live
As dogs and as worse than dogs,
At least we can die like men!
Tell it there is a woe
Not for the conquered alone! {39b}
_An eye for an eye_, _and a tooth_
_For a tooth_, _and a life for a life_!