To The Girls Of The Unions.

Girls, we love you, and love
    Asks you to give again
That which draws it above,
    Beautiful, without stain.

Give us weariless faith
    In our Cause pure, passionate,
Dearer than life and death,
    Dear as the love that's it!

Give to the man who turns
    Traitrous hands or forlorn
Back from the plough that burns,
    Give him pitiless scorn!

Let him know that no wife
    Would bear him a fearless child
To hate and loathe the life
    Of a leprous father defiled.

Girls, we love you, and love
    Asks you to give again
That which draws it above,
    Beautiful, without stain!

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

To India.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

In The Pit. "Chant Of The Firemen."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

England. In The Camp.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

New Guinea "Converts."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

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To His Love.

"Teach me, love, to be true;
    Teach me, love, to love;
Teach me to be pure like you.
    It will be more than enough!

"Ah, and in days to come,
    Give me, my seraph, too,
A son nobler than I,
    A daughter true like you:

"A son to battle the wrong,
    To seek and strive for the right;
A beautiful daughter of song,
    To point us on to the light!"

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Farewell To The Children.

In the early summer morning
    I stand and watch them come,
The children to the school-house;
    They chatter and laugh and hum.

The little boys with satchels
    Slung round them, and the girls
Each with hers swinging in her hand;
    I love their sunny curls.

I love to see them playing,
    Romping and shouting with glee,
The boys and girls together,
    Simple, fearless, free.

I love to see them marching
    In squads, in file, in line,
Advancing and retreating,
    Tramping, keeping time.

Sometimes a little lad
    With a bright brave face I'll see,
And a wistful yearning wonder
    Comes stealing over me.

For once I too had a darling;
    I dreamed what he should do,
And surely he'd have had, I...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Father Abe.

(Song of the American Sons of Labour.)


THE SONG.


"O we knew so well, dear Father,
    When we answered to your call,
And the Southern Moloch stricken
    Shook and tottered to his fall -

"O we knew so well you loved us,
    And our hearts beat back to yours
With the rapturous adoration
    That through all the years endures!

"Mothers, sisters bade us hasten
    Sweethearts, wives with babe at breast;
For the Union, faith and freedom,
    For our hero of the West!

"And we wrung forth victory blood-stained
    From the desperate hands of Crime,
And our Cause blazed out Man's beacon
    Through the endless future time!

"And forgiven, forever we bade it
    Cease, that envy, hatred, strife,

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

One Among So Many.

. . . In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night.
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!
Seduced; a gentleman; a baby coming;
Parents that railed; London; the child born dead;
A seamstress then, one of some fifty girls
"Taken on" a few months at a dressmaker's
In the crush of the "season;" thirteen shillings a week!
The fashionable people's dresses done,
And they flown off, these fifty extra girls
Sent - to the streets: that is, to work that gives
Scarcely enough to buy the decent clothes
Respectable employers all demand
Or speak dismissal. Well, well, well, we know!
And she - "Why, I have gone on down and down,
And there's the gutter, look, that ...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

To An Unionist.
"If you only knew
How gladly I've given it
All these years -
The light of mine eyes,
The heat of my lips,
Mine agonies,
My yearning tears,
My blood that drips,
My brain that sears:
If you only knew
How gladly I've given it
All these years -
My hope and my youth,
My manhood, my Art,
My passion, my truth,
My mind and my heart:

"O my brother, you would not say,
What have you to do with me?
You would not, would not turn away
Doubtingly and bitterly.

"If you only knew
How little I cared for
These other things -
The delicate speech,
The high demand
Of each from each,
The imaginings
Of Love's Holy Land:
If you only knew
How little I cared for
These other things -
The wide c...
Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Epode. "On The Ranges, Queensland."
Beyond the night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of dawn released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of day-pursuing morn!

Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death
That hold my heart, I feel my new life's breath,
I see the face my spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.

Beyond the night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great Cause, too, - sure as the sun yon ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say;
"I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!"

* * * * *

When I was young, the muse I wors...
Francis William Lauderdale Adams