What if the People Speak?

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 17, 30 June 1911, Page 3

What if the People Speak?

By A. J. WATERHOUSE.

Time was in Britain when your kind laughed at the cries of the "mob" accursed, But a Cromwell rose, and the price was paid, the head of a Charles the First; Time was in France when the nobles danced whilst the peasants writhed in pain, But the People spoke, and we pray our God that never and ne'er again Shall the streets run red with a crimson. flood while fiends their orgies hold ; Yet out of that chaos a New Earth. swung, displacing the shameless Old. Oh, the tale of life is the tale of strife 'twixt Greed and the poor and weak, But they sometimes rise in their .black despair—and what if the People speak ?

From out of the gulf of the voiceless depths there soundeth a muffled sigh, The fleeting ghost of a woman's sob or wraith of a childish cry. Palace and hovel, not far apart they stand in the murky gloam, And one is the home of your pride, my lord, and one is your brother's home. Your factory wheels go round and round, grinding your golden grist, While Death draws near to the toiling babes to enter them on his list, And the wealth to add to a wealth unused forever in greed you seek— But what if the People speak, my lords, ay, what "if the people Bpeak?—''California Weekly."

But what if the People speak, my lords, what if the People speak, Suppose that vhey weary of cuffs and blows and turning the other cheek I What if the Atlas who bears your world refuses to carry the load., Tiring at last of penury's grip and the sting of its ceaseless goad? Oh, steadily upward prices go, and yours is the lion's share, While the paupers build, with a sig_ of woe, the multifold millionaire, And the skies are brass,- and our God is deaf or haply His rest dotseek— But what if the People speak, my lords, ay, what if the People speak?