Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN ODE OF WELCOME TO THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS, SWANSEA, 1901, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN ODE OF WELCOME TO THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS, SWANSEA, 1901, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Welcome to these our busy toilworn vales
Last Line: Welcome you gladly with a heartfelt song!
Subject(s): Labor Unions


WELCOME to these our busy toilworn vales,
Strong Parliament of Labour! For we know
How great thy powers have grown and still shall grow
Lightening the worker's lot;
Before thy fearless blade of keen debate
The banded armies of the careless Great,
Wealth, Privilege, the dull unheeding State,
Shrink baffled and are not.
Guide these our toiling myriads well, and take
Their aimless strength and wake
Where once the cold Economist bore sway
The genial warmth of a humaner day;
Speak for the voiceless multitudes, and bind
The labourers, heart and mind,
Till each knit fast with each,
Obeys the common good thy tongue can teach.
Dumb was the worker, but to-day grows strong,
No more he suffers wrong;
Welcome, great Congress, to our toiling Wales!
For here mid murky air or sunless mine,
The grimy workers -- curst
By the old seeming - stern decree Divine,
Which the Beneficent Will
Converts to blessing still --
Labour, adust, athirst.
All night the strained arms from the furnace take
The blinding, scorching, steel;
All night while others dream, tired, half-awake,
The miners crouch and kneel;
Or ere the dreary dawn, start from their heavy sleep.
Toil, toil is theirs, sickness and scanty food
To rear their growing brood;
Small solace save the faith that looks above
The hymns, the songs, they love;
And oft despondence takes them dark and deep,
It seems that no man heeds them, or their pain --
Let them not cry in vain!

And sometimes through the haunted, lonely mine
Sudden there rolls a dreadful noise,
And the strong father, working with his boys,
Knows that his life and theirs are done;
They shall not greet again the rising sun --
The low roof thunders down and is their tomb,
They pine, they die in rayless gloom;
Or withering flame flashes like lightning by,
Blinding the hapless eye --
Then the dread after-damp, which chokes the breath
And in a moment, death!
Last, one by one, the shrouded corpses come,
Borne to the darkened home, --
This seems the end of all, this, lifelong labour's sum!

Consider well, oh Toiler's Parliament,
These poor lives worn and spent!
Lift thou, the heavy burden of their care,
Gain for them healthier dwellings, wholesome air:
The wage that is their due do thou secure,
Make thou their weakness strong,
Guide them to live lives, sober, provident, pure;
For ruinous Strife, teach them the ways of Peace,
Their knowledge and their restful hours increase;
One people are we, small and great,
Dispel the clouds of ignorance and hate!
A little time, a little 'tis we live,
And I who have no aid but this to give,
Welcome you gladly with a heartfelt song!





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