Ballad Of The Unemployed (1932)
"Food to eat,
Boots for our feet,
Work for our hands to do ;
Somcthing is wrong :
We that are strong,
Helpless and hopeless too."
Statesman, economist, pure statistician,
Banker, financier, credit magician :
Hark to their song !
"Something is wrong."
Are we so impotent ? Can we not heed !
Here is the laborer, here is the need :
Must we deny him to sow and to reap ?
Most he lack bread because corn's, too cheap ?
What of our sciences :
All we have won--
All our alliances
Under the sun
All our appliances--
All we have done ?
Can we ally the man to his toil ?
Can we apply not the coal and the oil ?
Is the world fatted with iron and steel !
Glows every hearth "Has each table its meal ?
What then this song, that comes up from the street.
"Food to eat,
Boots for our feet,
Work for our hands to do ;
Something is wrong :
We that are strong,
Helpless and hopeless too."
Business men -- gentlemen -- men of each nation !
Civilisation -- O Civilisation !
Man that was primitive, cultureless, crude,
Nothing prevented from digging his food,
Nothing prevented from hunting his meat,
Man that is civilised starves in the street.
For the law of Death, which is still " Compete ! "
Man that is civilised dies in the slum,
Man that is civilised suffers this wrong,
Helpless and dumb
Save for his song :
"Food to eat,
Boots for our feet,
Labor for which we pine !
What does it mean ?
What is between
Us and the idle mine ?"
Ah, none can work, though the nerves bid do,
And the heart be sound, and the muscles true,
Though many more mouths the earth can feel
And of many more goods the world has need,
For to Capital all men's prayer has said,
"Give us this day our daily bread."
And never a man of us all is fed
Till in sight of capital food be spread.
Property--profit ! We give consent,
And the right to work is in prison pent,
Condemned at suit of the right to rent ;
And the more that the world may own in a sum,
The more may a strong man starve in a slum.
Parson, philosopher, metaphysician,
Poet, philanthiopist; dialectician,
Is there no cure
Must it endure ?
Still must the murmur come up from the street ?
"Food to eat,
Boots for our feet,
Work for our hands to do ;
Something is wrong :
We that are strong,
Starve in a throng,
Helpless and hopeless too."
From "Rotary Wheel."
Notes
From the Victorian newspaper the Horsham Times Tuesday 4 October 1932 p. 7.