Oh Man, (I stopped to moralize,) How eager thou to fight with Fate, To bring Astraea from the skies; Yet ah, how too inadequate The means by which thou fain wouldst cope With Laws and Morals, King and Pope! “_Justice_!”—how prompt the witling’s sneer,— “Justice! Thou wouldst have Justice here! And each poor man should be a squire, Each with his competence a year, Each with sufficient beef and beer, And all things matched to his desire, While all the Middle Classes should With every vile Capitalist Be clean reformed away for good, And vanish like a morning mist!
“Ah splendid Vision, golden time, An end of hunger, cold, and crime. An end of Rent, an end of Rank, An end of balance at the Bank, An end of everything that’s meant To bring Investors five per cent!”
How fair doth Justice seem, I cried, Yet oh, how strong the embattled powers That war against on every side Justice, and this great dream of ours, And what have we to plead our cause ’Gainst Masters, Capital, and laws, What but a big red box indeed, With copies of a weekly screed, That’s slowly jolted, up and down, Behind an old velocipede To clamour _Justice_ through the town: How touchingly inadequate These arms wherewith we’d vanquish Fate!
Nay, the old Order shall endure And little change the years shall know, And still the Many shall be poor, And still the Poor shall dwell in woe; Firm in the iron Law of things The strong shall be the wealthy still, And (called Capitalists or Kings) Shall seize and hoard the fruits of skill. Leaving the weaker for their gain, Leaving the gentler for their prize Such dens and husks as beasts disdain,— Till slowly from the wrinkled skies The fireless frozen Sun shall wane, Nor Summer come with golden grain; Till men be glad, mid frost and snow To live such equal lives of pain As now the hutted Eskimo! Then none shall plough nor garner seed, Then, on some last sad human shore, Equality shall reign indeed, The Rich shall be with us no more, Thus, and not otherwise, shall come The new, the true Millennium!
_St. Andrews by the Northern sea_, _A haunted town it is to me_! A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round. And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.