Song of the Disinherited
Lift up your faces from the sod ;
Frown with each furrowed brow ;
Gold apes a mightier power than God,
And wealth is worshipped now !
In all these toll-ennobled lands
You have no heritage ;
They snatch the fruit of youthful hands,
The staff from weary age.
O, tell them in their palaces,
These lords of land and money,
They shall not kill the poor like bees,
To rob them of life's honey.
Through long, dark years of blood and tears
We've tolled like branded slaves,
Till wrong's red band hath made a land
Of paupers, prisons, graves !
But long-sufferance endeth now ;
Within the souls of men
The fruitful buds ol promise blow,
And freedom lives again !
O tell them in their palaces,
These lords of land and money,
They shall not kill the poor like bees,
To rob them of life's honey.
Too long have Labor's nobles knelt
Before fictitious "rank" ;
Within our souls the iron is felt
In tune our fetters clank !
A glorious voice goes throbbing forth
From millions stirring now
Who yet before these gods of earth
Shall stand with lifted brow,
And tell them in their palaces,
These lords of land and money,
They shall not kill the poor like bees,
To rob them of life's honey.
--Gerald Massey.
Notes
From the Brisbane newspaper the Worker Thursday 9 May 1918 p. 3.
The Chartist poet, journalist and free thinker, Gerald Massey, 1828-1907, published his earliest poetry collection, Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love in 1851. His work first appeared in Australian newspapers in 1851.