[Editor: This poem by Henry Lawson, regarding May Day, was published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 7 May 1892.]
May Day in Europe.
Bar the gates of Mammon Castle! See that troops are posted there!
I have seen the crimson banner of the children of Despair!
Here they come!
Oh! here they come!
And their eyes are cowed no longer and their bloodless lips are dumb.
Here they come!
Let the monarchs make a treaty for the pregnant hours declare
War against the social system by the Army of Despair!
Here it comes!
Oh! here it comes!
Now, defiant hymns are growling like the “roll of muffled drums.”
Here it comes!
This is not the petty struggle of a State against a State,
But a universal rising of the victims of the Great!
Here they come!
Oh! here they come!
They have lived, my God! and suffered in the cabin and the slum!
Here they come!
They will stop the Car of Progress, for its wheels have gone too long
Over human hearts while loaded with the passengers of wrong —
Here they are!
Oh! here they are!
They will stop the Car of Progress, for its wheels have rolled too far.
Here they are!
HENRY LAWSON.
Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 7 May 1892, p. 10
Editor’s notes:
car = an abbreviation of “carriage”
dumb = mute, unable to speak; unwilling to speak; not speaking (can also refer to: a lack of intelligence; someone who lacks intelligence, or who is regarded as stupid; something which is stupid, foolish, or pointless)
pregnant = full of importance, meaning, or significance; abounding, full, teeming; full of implied meaning, suggestive; the state of a female animal or female human who has an offspring (or plural thereof) developing inside her womb, whether it be at the stage of embryo, fetus, or baby
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