The Labour Agitator

Let the liar call me liar,
And the robber call me thief.
They can only fan the fire
That is born of my belief.
While Im speaking, while Im writing,
To reform the wrongful laws,
Well I know that I am fighting
For the grand old Cause.


See the army of the rebels
Marching on for evermore.
We are countless as the pebbles
That are strewn along the shore.
Agitating, agitating,
Till the Truth has sealed the fate
Of the wrongs that I am hating
With the grand old Hate.


Though no battle banner rustles
In a smoke that blurs the blue,
As when heroes poured from Brussels
To the field of Waterloo,
Though we do not hear the rattle
Of the rifles in the wars,
There is glory in the battle
For the grand old Cause.

See the army of the rebels
Marching on for evermore.
We are countless as the pebbles
That are strewn along the shore.
Agitating, agitating,
Till the Truth has sealed the fate
Of the wrongs that I am hating
With the grand old Hate.

No! I look not to the reaping
In the dynasty of men,
For I know that Ill be sleeping
In a slandered grave eer then.
Till his right to man is given
Well rebel, and well rebel
As we would rebel in heaven
If it proved a hell.

See the army of the rebels
Marching on for evermore.
We are countless as the pebbles
That are strewn along the shore.
Agitating, agitating,
Till the Truth has sealed the fate
Of the wrongs that I am hating
With the grand old Hate.

No! Theres neither creed nor nation
Where the Labour flags unfurled,
For the Labour agitation
Breaks the barriers of the world.
Let the rulers fly in terror
With their scornful lips uncurled,
One by one the gods of error
From their thrones are hurled.

See the army of the rebels
Marching on for evermore.
We are countless as the pebbles
That are strewn along the shore.
Agitating, agitating,
Till the Truth has sealed the fate
Of the wrongs that I am hating
With the grand old Hate.

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

Henry Lawson

Andy's Gone With Cattle

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

Eurunderee

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Tragedy

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Wattle

Henry Lawson, 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.

On The March

So the time seems come at last,
And the drums go rolling past,
And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow;
They are marching with the sun,
But I look in vain for one
Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

They were men who did the work
Out at Blackall, Hay, and Bourke,
They were men who fought the battle that the world shall never know;
And they vanished one by one
When their bitter task was done,
Men who worked and wrote for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

Some are scattered, some are dead,
By the shanty and the shed,
In the lignum and the mulga, by the river running low;
And I often wish in vain
I could call them back again,
Mates of mine who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.

Henry Lawson

The Patriotic League

Behold! the biased foes of Right
Are conscious of their danger,
Theyre startled by the dawning light,
So very long a stranger.
And fearing for their rotting laws,
Whose reign is nearly ended,
To study out the Peoples cause
At last theyve condescended.


And this they call the Peoples Cause,
Why this is insurrection!
They would revoke the very laws
We made for our protection!
An equal right with us they claim!
Theyll rob us by and by, sir!
Well form a league and steal a name
And tell another lie, sir.


They took to gloss a base intrigue
A name that was demotic.
They stole a name and formed a league
And called it Patriotic.
Theyve resurrected ancient lies,
The world had most forgotten,
The liars thi...

Henry Lawson

In The Street

Where the needle-woman toils
Through the night with hand and brain,
Till the sickly daylight shudders like a spectre at the pain,
Till her eyes seem to crawl,
And her brain seems to creep,

And her limbs are all a-tremble for the want of rest and sleep!
It is there the fire-brand blazes in my blood; and it is there
That I see the crimson banner of the Children of Despair!
That I feel the soul and music in a rebel's battle song,
And the greatest love for justice and the hottest hate for wrong!

When the foremost in his greed
Presses heavy on the last,
In the brutal spirit rising from the grave-yard of the past,
Where the poor are trodden down
And the rich are deaf and blind!

It is there I feel the greatest love and pity for mankind:
There, where...

Henry Lawson

A Song For The Sydney Poor or, The Australian Marseillaise

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Libertys a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmens weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.

We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that cant endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Lo...

Henry Lawson

The Hymn Of The Socialists

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common stye
In the citys offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie,
By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,
We swear the tyrants of earth to rout, with tongue and with pen and sword!

By the child that sees the light, where the pestilent air stagnates,
By the woman, worn and white, who under the street-lamp waits,
By the horror of vice that thrives in the dens of the wretched poor,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for all that is good and pure!

By the rights that were always ours, the rights that we neer enjoyed,
And the gloomy cloud that lowers on the brow of the unemployed;
By the struggling mothers and wives, by girls in the streets of sin,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for our ...

Henry Lawson

The Army Of The Rear

I listened through the music and the sounds of revelry,
And all the hollow noises of that year of Jubilee;
I heard beyond the music and beyond the local cheer,
The steady tramp of thousands that were marching in the rear.
Tramp! tramp! tramp!
They seem to shake the air,
Those never-ceasing footsteps of the outcasts in the rear.

I heard defiance ringing from the men of rags and dirt,
I heard wan woman singing that sad Song of the Shirt,
And oer the sounds of menace and moaning low and drear,
I heard the steady tramping of their feet along the rear.
Tramp! tramp! tramp!
Vibrating in the air,
Theyre swelling fast, those footsteps of the Army of the Rear!

I hate the wrongs I read about, I hate the wrongs I see!
The tramping of that army sounds as music ...

Henry Lawson