My garden and other verses [electronic resource]

WORKERS, ARE YE WAKING?

Workers, are ye waking? Lo! the night has flown;
Wake to take the things ye make, claim them—
   they're your own
Wrest them from the idlers, from the robber band,
They who ne'er make anything, yet your skill com-
   mand.
Treasure from the mines you tear, fashion in the
   mill;
Your reward? Subsistence bare. Idlers' coffers fill.
And though with hearts a-breaking, ye toil 'neath
   sun and star
Things you're ever making—yours they never are.

Workers, are ye waking?
Masterdom dethrone
Dawn's the hour for taking—
Day to claim your own!

Workers, are ye dreaming all your lives away?
Only play at rebels in your childlike way;
You who build the palaces, contented with the slums,
Weaving sild and laces, clad in cotton thrums.
Theatres and halls ye raise, yours the talent, too,
Velvet seats for idlers, "standing room" for you.
Motor cars and carriages ye construct galore,
For the useless classes, then tramo home footsore.

Cease to nurse the tyrants!
End the hateful tax!
Wake, oh, sleeping giants,
Throw them off your backs!

THE SCAB

I've travelled o'er mountains and hills and through,lb/>    valleys,
Where the worker is crushed by the "Lord of the
   soil";
Through Chicago and China, through London's dull
   alleys,
Where millions of beings know nothing but toil.
Where the spectre of hunger and want, present ever,
Makes the life of the toiler all dullness and drab;
But of the earth's most degraded ones, surely I never
Met one in my life to compare with the "Scab."

Oh, the Scab! Oh, the Scab!
When Massey's little pet you gently grab,
Your love bestow it,
Out your brand so you will know it,
In a place where he can't show it—
He's a Scab!

There are creatures who'll cringe and crawl to the
   bosses,
Who haven't yet learned they belong to that class
That produces all wealth, and then hands it, like
   asses!
To those who do nothing but gay the time pass.
When the toilers are striving for better conditions,
These freaks of the Fatman, with brains like the
   crabs,
That bid them walk backwards (an ancient tradi-
   tion);
"Free laborers" they call them—their proper
   name;s "Scabs"

Oh, the Scab! Oh, the Scab!
Be he Liberal, or Tory, or Lib-Lab;
He's without redeeming features.
Though the pet of all the preachers,
He's the meanest of all creatures—
He's a Scab!

Take the traders who lie and deceive for their profit,
The landlords evicting the poor their rent,
The userers dunning to death for theor interest,
The blackmailers dogging and never content
The cowards who write you anonymous letters,
The thiefs in the dark who would deal you a stab,
The loafers, the spielers, the church-going seaters,
Are angels from heaven compared with the Scab.

Oh, the Scab! Oh, the Scab!
When you're on strike your job he'll meanly
   grab;
As a social pest we know him,
In the gutter we will throw him,
Where the flies won't ever blow him—
He's a Scab!