Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WAGE-SLAVES TO WAR-MAKERS, by EDWARD RALPH CHEYNEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WAGE-SLAVES TO WAR-MAKERS, by                    
First Line: We have no land for which to fight
Last Line: It will be you, it will be you!
Alternate Author Name(s): Cheyney, Ralph
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Russian Revolution; Social Protest; War; Work; Workers


We have no land for which to fight
Except where Russia cracks the night.
This is your land, within your power.
We break the rock; you pluck the flower.
We build the roads on which you speed.
And when we strike for what we need
We learn at once how well you own
The press, the courts and every stone
Of every structure that we rear.
Say, what invaders shall we fear?
Why should we care out on the job
If you or others drive and rob?

We have no land for which to fight
Though all the world is ours by right.
We workers grimed with soot and mud
Have shed enough and more of blood.
Each office-building overhead
Is built on corpses of our dead.
We have no quarrel across the foam
But here within our jail, your home!
We give our pledge we shall not kill,
For ours the braver, kinder will.
But if you force us till we do,
It will be you, it will be you!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net