While The Billy BoilsSearchWe are the women and childrenOf the men that mined for gold:Heavy are we with sorrow,Heavy as heart can hold;Galled are we with injustice,Sick to the soul of loss —Husbands and sons and brothersSlain for the yellow dross!
We are the women and childrenOf the men that died like sheep,“Stoping” the stubborn matrix,Piling the mullock heap,Stifling in torrid “rises,”Stumbling with stupid treadAlong the Vale of the ShadowTo the thud of the stamper-head!
We are the women and childrenOf the miners that delved belowMain-shaft and winze and crosscut —Opening the silly “show.”Look at us! Yea, in our faces!God! Are ye not ashamedIn the sight of your godless fellowsOf the men ye have killed and maimed?
They moiled like gnomes in the “faces,”They choked in the “’fracteur” fumes,And your dividends paved the pathwaysThat led to their early tombs.With Death in the sleepless night-shiftsThey diced for the prize ye drew;And the Devil loaded the pieces —But the stakes were held by you!
Ye were the lords of Labor;They were the slaves of Need.Homes had they for the keeping,Children to clothe and feed!Ye paid them currency wages —Shall it stand to your souls for shriftThat ye bought them in open marketFor “seven-and-six a shift?”
Wise in your generation,Cunning are ye in your day!But ’ware of the stealthy vengeanceThat never your wealth shall stay!They won it — yea, with their life-blood;Ye laughed at the sacrifice;But by every drop of your spillingWe shall hold you to pay the price!
Ye have sown the wind, to your sorrow;Ye have sown by the coward’s code,Where the glimmering candles gutter,And the rock-drill bites on the lode!Ye have sown to the jangle of stampers,To the brawl of the Stock Exchange,And your children shall reap the whirlwindOn the terms that the gods arrange.
And ye, who counsel the nation,Statesmen who rule the State!Foolish are ye in your weakness,Wise are we in our hate!Traitors and false that panderTo the spillers of human life,Slaying with swords of silenceWho dared not slay with the knife!
And ye of the House of Pilate,Ye who gibber of ChristAt the foot of the golden crossesWhere the sons of men are triced!Ye who whimper of patience,Who slay with a loose-lipped lieAt the word of the fat blasphemersWhose poppet-heads mock the sky!
We are the women and childrenOf the men that ye mowed like wheat;Some of us slave for a pittance —Some of us walk the street;Bodies and souls, ye have scourged us;Ye have winnowed us flesh from bone:But, by the God ye have flouted,We will come again for our own!