Tyranny. (Melbourne.)

[The Delegates speak.]

"'Tyranny'? Yes, that's it!
    We are not afraid
To face the word that's fit
    For what we've said!

"It's the tyranny of the Many,
    That will not allow
There's the right to any
    To seek wealth and power now

"At the expense of the Many.
    Say, that one or this
Works 'over hours': then he
    Drives us all to the abyss,

"Where, struggling together
    One rises again
While the rest all together
    Are stifled and slain.

"From this death-strife of brothers
    Comes the tyranny of One.
That's your sort. But we others,
    We prefer our own!"

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 An Old Friend In England. "Esau."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

New Guinea "Converts."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

A Visitor In The Camp. To Mary Robinson. {27}

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

England.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

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Upstarts.

What? do you say that we, the toilers - the slaves -
    (Why strain at the gnat name
Who swallow the camel thing your pocket craves?) -
    That we are "just the same,"

(Nay, worse) when power is ours and wealth - that we
    Are harder masters still,
More keen to ring her last from misery,
    More greedy of our will?

'Tis true! And when you see men so - see us
    Sneer at us, call us swine! -
"How we must love you who have made us thus,
    You may perhaps divine!"

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

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

Yes, you do well to mock us, you
    Who knew our bitter woe -
To jeer the false, deny the true
    In us blind struggling low,

While, on your pleasant place aloft
    With flowers and clouds and streams,
At our black sweat and toil you scoffed
    That marred your idle dreams.

"Oh, freedom, what was that to us,"
(You'd shout down to us there),
"Except the freedom foul, vicious,
    From all of good and fair?

"Obedience, faith, humility,
    To us were empty names." -
The like to you (might we reply)
    Whose noisy life proclaims

Presumption, want of human love,
    Impatience, filthy breath, {32}
The snob in soul who looks above,
    Trampling on what...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Australia.

I see a land of desperate droughts and floods:
I see a land where need keeps spreading round,
And all but giants perish in the stress:
I see a land where more, and more, and more
The demons, Earth and Wealth, grow bloat and strong.

I see a land that lies a helpless prey
To wealthy cliques and gamblers and their slaves,
The huckster politicians: a poor land
That less and less can make her heart-wish law.

Yea, but I see a land where some few brave
Raise clear eyes to the Struggle that must come,
Reaching firm hands to draw the doubters in,
Preaching the gospel: "Drill and drill and drill!"
Yea, but I see a land where best of all
The hope of victory burns strong and bright!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Mount Rennie." {95}

(The Australian Press speaks).


"Kill them! Yes, hang them all!
    They are fiends, just that!
And we're all agreed fiends should be sent
    To a place that's hot.

"They were fiends, too, of themselves;
    They delighted in it!
It's all their fault, their own fault!
    Don't listen a minute!

"Don't let anyone talk
    About 'fatality,' 'lot,'
That sort of talk (excuse us!)
    Is just damned rot.

"You and I, p'raps, are what we're made.
    If I'm dying of phthisis,
It's because my father passed on
    To me what the price is

"Of his excesses, and I,
    Overworked, come off worse.
Just so; but, with these young fiends,
    It's quite the reverse.

"Their homes were happy and bright,

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Liberty!

"Liberty!" Is that the cry, then?
    We have heard it oft of yore.
Once it had, we think, a meaning;
    Let us hear it now no more.

We have read what history tells us
    Of its heroes, martyrs too.
Doubtless they were very splendid,
    But they're not for me and you.

There were Greeks who fought and perished,
    Won from Persians deathless graves.
Had we lived then, we're aware that
    We'd have been those same Greeks' slaves!

Then a Roman came who loved us;
    Caesar gave men tongues and swords.
Crying "Liberty," they fought him,
    Cato and his cut-throat lords.

When he'd give a broader franchise,
    Lift the mangled nations bowed,
Crying "Liberty!" they killed him,
    Brutus and his pandar crowd.
...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

To The Sons Of Labour.

Grave this deep in your hearts,
Forget not the tale of the past!
Never, never believe
That any will help you, or can,
Saving only yourselves!
What have the gentlemen done,
Peerless haters of wrong,
Byrons and Shelleys, what?
They stand great famous names,
Demi-gods to their own,
Shadows far off, alien
To us and ours for ever.
Those who love them and hate
The crime, the injustice they hated,
What can they do but shout,
Win a name from our woes,
And leave us just as we were?
No, but resolutely turned,
Our wants, our desires made clear,
And clear the means that shall win them,
Drill and drill and drill!
Then when the day is come,
When the royal battle-flag's up,
When blood has been spilled in vain
In timid half-hearted war,...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams