Parallels For The Pious.

"He holds a pistol to my head,
Swearing that he will shoot me dead,
If he have not my purse instead,
            The robber!"

"He, with the lash of wealth and power,
Flogs out my heart and flings the dower,
The plundered pittance of his hour,
            The robber!"

"He shakes his serpent tongue that lies,
Wins trust for poisoned sophistries
And stabs me in the dark, and flies,
            The assassin!"

"He pits me in the dreadful fight
Against my fellow. Then he quite
Strips both his victims in the night,
            The assassin!"

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams (27 September 1862 – 4 September 1893) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and social reformer. His literary work often reflected his radical socialist views. Adams lived a life marred by poverty and struggles with his health, eventually committing suicide at the age of 30. Despite his brief life, his contributions to literature and social thought remain significant.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

New Guinea "Converts."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To John Ruskin. (After Reading His "Modern Painters.")

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

A South-Sea Islander.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

A Death At Sea. (Coral Sea, Australia.)

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

An "Assassin."

. . . They caught them at the bend. He and his son
Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps.
From either side the stone-walled wintry road
There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk.
The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest.
The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped
Close from the pitch-black of a thick-set bush
Not five yards from him, and lit all the face
Of him whose sweetheart walked the Dublin streets
For lust of him who gave one yell and fell
Flat on the stony road, a sweltering corse.
Then they came out, the men who did this thing,
And looked upon their hatred's retribution,
While heedlessly the rattling car fled on.
Grey-haired old wolf, your letch for peasants' blood,
For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze,
Is done...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

In An East End Hovel. To A Workman, A Would-Be Suicide.

Man of despair and death,
Bought and slaved in the gangs,
Starved and stripped and left
To the pitiful pitiless night,
Away with your selfish thoughts!
Touch not your ignorant life!
Are there no masters of slaves,
Jeering, cynical, strong -
Are there no brigands (say),
With the words of Christ on their lips
And the daggers under their cloaks -
Is there not one of these
That you can steal on and kill?
O as the Swiss mountaineer
Dogged on the perilous heights
His disciplined conqueror foes: {39a}
Caught up one in his arms
And, laughing exultantly,
Plunged with him to the abyss:
So let it be with you!
An eye for an eye, and a tooth
For a tooth, and a life for a life!
Tell it, this hateful strong
Contemptuous hypocrite world,

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Aux Ternes. {46} (Paris.)

SHE. - "Up and down, up and down,
            From early eve to early day.
        Life is quicker in the town;
            When you've leisure, anyway!

        "Down and up, down and up!
            O will no one stop and speak?
        I would really like to sup,
            And my limbs are heavy and weak.

        "What's my price, sir? I'm no Jew.
            If with me you wish to sleep,
        'Tis five francs, sir. Surely you
            Will admit that that is cheap?"

HE. - "Christ, if you are not stone blind,
        Stone deaf also, you know it is
    Christian towns leave far behind
        Sodom and thos...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

The Peasants' Revolt. {35}

Thro' the mists of years,
    Thro' the lies of men,
Your bloody sweat and tears,
Your desperate hopes and fears
    Reach us once again.

Brothers, who long ago,
    For life's bitter sake
Toiled and suffered so,
Robbery, insult, blow,
    Rope and sword and stake:

Toiled and suffered, till
    It burst, the brightening hope,
"Might and right" and "will and skill,"
That scorned, and does, and will,
    Sword and stake and rope!

Wat and Jack and John,
    Tyler, Straw, and Ball,
Souls that faltered not,
Hearts like white iron hot,
    Still we hear your call!

Yes, your "bell is rung,"
    Yes, for "now is time!"
Come hither, every one,
Brave ghosts whose day's not done,
    Avengers of old rime, -<...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Ten Paces Off

An open country.
LAURENCE RABY and FORREST, BRIAN AYLMER and PRESCOT.

Forrest:
Ive won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,
And pull that vile flower from your waistcoat,
And throw down that beast of a weed;
Im going to give you the signal
I gave Harry Hunt at Boulogne,
The morning he met Major Bignell,
And shot him as dead as a stone;
For he must look round on his right hand
To watch the white flutter, that stops
His aim, for it takes off his sight, and
I cough while the handkerchief drops.
And you keep both eyes on his figure,
Old fellow, and dont take them off.
Youve got the sawhandled hair trigger,
You sight him and shoot when I cough.

Laurence (aside):
Though God will never forgive me,
Th...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Pere-La-Chaise. {45} (Paris.)

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city,
    Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay,
The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity,
    Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.

Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom
    Hell's wrongs unutterable had made as mad.
The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb,
    The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.

O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race!
    O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that
The lust in one for power, for tinsel place,
    Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat, -

Is it for nothing, now and evermore,
    O you whose sin in life had death in ease,
The murder of your victims beats the door
    Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?
    
    
...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams