“O my brother, you would not say: What have you to do with me? You would not, would not turn away Doubtingly and bitterly:
“But you would take my hand with your hand, O my brother, if you only knew; You would smile at me, you would understand, You would call me brother as I call you!”
TO MY FRIEND SYDNEY JEPHCOTT, WITH A COPY OF MY “POETICAL WORKS.”
“Take with all my heart, friend, this, The labour of my past, Though the heart here hidden is And the soul’s eternities Hold the present fast.
“Take it, still, with soul and heart, Pledge of that dear day When the shadows stir and start, By the bright Sun burst apart— _Young Australia_!”
We thank you for a noble work well done. There is a kindness—(’tis the truer one; The better part the simpler heart doth know), The care to give the day a brighter sun
To these, the nameless crowd that drags on slow The common toil, the common weary woe The world cares nought for. But _your_ work secures Thro’ union strength and self-respect that grow.
There is a courage that unflawed endures The sneer, the slander of earth’s epicures. And here are grateful women’s hearts to show This kindness and this courage, both are yours!
“FATHER ABE.” (_Song of the American Sons of Labour_.)
“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, As he willed, our murdered Father That had sealed his love with life!
“O dear Father, was it thus, then? Did we this but in a dream? Is it real, hideous present? Does our suffering only seem?
“Bend and listen, look and tell us! Are these joyless toilers We? Slaves more wretched, patient, piteous Than the slaves we fought to free!
“Are these weak, worn girls and women Those whose mothers yet can tell How they kissed and clasped men god-like With fierce faces fronting hell?
