WILLIAM FRANCIS BARNARD

Justice publishing company
Pittsburgh, Pa.

=The Tongues of Toil=

Do you hear the call from a hundred lands. 
    Lords of a dying name? 
We are the men of sinewed hands
    Whom the earth and the seas acclaim. 
We are the hoards that made you lords. 
    And gathered your gear and spoil. 
And we speak with a word that should be heard—­
    Hark to the tongues of toil!

The power of your hands it falls at last,
    The strength of your rule is o’er,
Where the might of a million slaves is massed
    To the shouts of a million more. 
We rise, we rise, ’neath the western skies,
    And the dawns of the east afar;
And our myriads swarm in the southlands warm,
    And under the northern star!

We take no thought of the fears you feel,
    And the rage you hold at heart,
Nor of all your strength of the gold and steel
    Enthroned at the gates of mart. 
We have no care for the deeds you dare,
    For the force of your armies hurled;
You stand but few, and we challenge you—­
    Strong men of all the world!

We served as your fools when time was young,
    And long, long we forbore. 
Glad of the niggard boons you flung,
    The least of your ample store;
But the gnawing pain of a starving brain
    Is great as the belly need—­
We have learned at last from a hungry past
    The joys of a rebel deed!

We come, we come, with the force of fate;
    We are not weak, but strong. 
We parley not, and we cannot wait;
    We march with a freeman’s song. 
We claim for meed what a life we can need
    That lives as a life should live—­
Not less, not more, From the plenteous store
    Which freeborn labors give!

We shall shape a world as a world should be,
    With room enough for all. 
We will rear a race of the wise and free,
    And not of the great and small. 
And the heart and the mind of humankind
    Shall drink to the dregs of good,
Forgetting the tears of the darker years,
    And the curse of bondman’s blood.

In vain you soften the voice of greed,
    In vain you speak us fair;
The time is late, and we hark nor heed;
    In gladness still we dare. 
Yield, then, yield to the force we wield,
    To the masses of our might;
We are countless strong at the throat of wrong
    The warriors of the right!

Yes, we are the captains of the earth
    And the warders of the sea—­
Of a race new born in nobler birth,
    The mighty and the free! 
We clasp all hands, to the farthest lands;
    We swear by our mother soil,
To take the meed who have done the deed! 
    Hark to the tongues of toil!

=The Hangman=

The hangman’s hands are dyed with blood,
    And all they touch or hold
Is stained and streaked with clotted blood
    E’en to his bloody gold—­
The coins that are paid for human breath
    And the lives which he has sold.