The Truth
COME then, let us at least know what's the truth.
Let us not blink our eyes and say
We did not understand; old age or youth
Benumbed our sense or stole our sight away.
It is a lie — just that, a lie — to declare
That Wages are the worth of Work.
No; they are what the Employer wills to spare
To let the Employee sheer starvation shirk.
They're the life-pittance Competition leaves,
The least for which brother'll slay brother.
He who the fruits of this hell-strife receives,
He is a thief, an assassin, and none other.
It is a lie — just that, a lie — to declare
That Rent's the interest on just gains.
Rent's the thumb-screw that makes the worker share
With him who worked not the produce of his pains.
Rent's the wise tax the human tape-worm knows.
The fat he takes; the life-lean leaves.
The holy Landlord is, as we suppose,
Just this — the model of assassin-thieves!
What is the trick the Rich-man, then, contrives?
How play my lords their brilliant rôles? —
They live on the plunder of our toiling lives,
The degradation of our bodies and souls!
An Assassin
. . . They caught him 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 further 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 for ever, for ever and ever is done!
O foul young Fox, no more young girls' fresh lips
Shall bruise and bleed to cool your lecher's lust.
Slowly from out the great high-terraced clouds
The round moon sailed. The dead were left alone.
* * * * *
I talked with one of those who did this thing,
A coughing half-starved lad, mere skin and bone.
I said: 'They found upon those dead men gold.
Why did you not take it?' Then with proud-raised head,
He looked at me and said: 'Sorr, we're not thaves!'
Brother, from up the maimed and mangled earth,
Strewn with our flesh and bones, wet with our blood,
Let that great Word go up to unjust heaven
And smite the cheek of the Devil they've called 'God!'
