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| COME hither, lads, and harken, for a tale there is to tell, | |
| Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well. | |
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| And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the sea, | |
| And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be. | |
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| There more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come, | 5 |
| Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient home. | |
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| For then, laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine, | |
| All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine. | |
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| Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deed of his hand, | |
| Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand. | 10 |
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| Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear | |
| For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear. | |
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| I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad | |
| Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had. | |
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| For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed, | 15 |
| Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed. | |
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| O strange new wonderful justice! But for whom shall we gather the gain? | |
| For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shall labor in vain. | |
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| Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours, and no more shall any man crave | |
| For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave. | 20 |
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| And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall gather gold | |
| To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the sold? | |
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| Nay, what save the lovely city, and the little house on the hill, | |
| And the wastes and the woodland beauty, and the happy fields we till; | |
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| And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty dead; | 25 |
| And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet’s teeming head; | |
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| And the painter’s hand of wonder; and the marvelous fiddle-bow, | |
| And the banded choirs of music: all those that do and know. | |
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| For all these shall be ours and all men’s; nor shall any lack a share | |
| Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when the world grows fair. | 30 |
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| Ah! such are the days that shall be! But what are the deeds of to-day, | |
| In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives away? | |
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| Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are three words to speak; | |
| WE WILL IT, and what is the foeman but the dream-strong wakened and weak? | |
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| O why and for what are we waiting? while our brothers droop and die, | 35 |
| And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by. | |
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| How long shall they reproach us where crowd on crowd they dwell, | |
| Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed, hungry hell? | |
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| Through squalid life they labored, in sordid grief they died, | |
| Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England’s pride. | 40 |
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| They are gone; there is none can undo it, nor save our souls from the curse; | |
| But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse? | |
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| It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door | |
| For the rich man’s hurrying terror, and the slow-foot hope of the poor. | |
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| Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their unlearned discontent, | 45 |
| We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be spent. | |
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| Come, then, since all things call us, the living and the dead, | |
| And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed. | |
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| Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by ease and rest, | |
| For the Cause alone is worthy till the good days bring the best. | 50 |
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| Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail, | |
| Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail. | |
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| Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we know: | |
| That the Dawn the Day is coming, and forth the Banners go. | |
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