Awakened!

Slowly the People waken; they have been,     Like weary soldiers, sleeping in their tents,     While traitors tiptoed through the silent camp     Intent on plunder.    Suddenly a sound -     A careless movement of too bold a thief -     Starts one dull sleeper; then another stirs,     A third cries out a warning, and at last     The people are awake!    Oh, when as one     The many rise, united and alert,     With Justice for their motto, they reflect     The mighty force of God's Omnipotence.     And nothing stands before them.    Lusty Greed,     Tyrannical Corruption long in power,     And smirking Cant (whose right hand robs and slays     So that the left may dower Church and School),     Monopoly, whose mandate took from Toil     The Mother Earth, that Idleness might loll     And breed the Monster of Colossal Wealth -     All these must fall before the gathering Force     Of public indignation.    That old strife     Which marks the progress of each century,     The war of Right with Might, is on once more,     And shame to him who does not take his stand.     This is the weightiest moment of all time,     And on the issues of the present hour     A nation's honour and a country's peace,     A People's future, ay, a World's, depends.     Until the vital questions of the day     Are solved and settled, and the spendthrift thieves     Who rob the coffers of the saving poor     Are led from fashion's feasts to prison fare,     And taught the saving grace of honest work -     Till Labour claims the privilege of toil     And toil the proceeds of its labour shares -     Let no man sleep, let no man dare to sleep!