Revolutions are contagious, and if we would have
succeeded here, perhaps we could change the world. (Loach, Land & Freedom).
The Day is Coming
William Morris (1834–1896)
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.
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.
There more than one in a thousand in the days that are
yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the
ancient home.
For then, laugh not, but listen to this strange tale
of mine,
All folk that are in England shall be better lodged
than swine.
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.
Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no
fear
For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf
anear.
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.
For that which the worker winneth shall then be his
indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed
no seed.
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.
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.
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?
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;
And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the
mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet’s
teeming head;
And the painter’s hand of wonder; and the marvelous
fiddle-bow,
And the banded choirs of music: all those that do and
know.
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.
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?
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?
O why and for what are we waiting? while our brothers
droop and die,
And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes
by.
How long shall they reproach us where crowd on crowd
they dwell,
Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed,
hungry hell?
Through squalid life they labored, in sordid grief
they died,
Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of
England’s pride.
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?
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.
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their
unlearned discontent,
We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide
be spent.
Come, then, since all things call us, the living and
the dead,
And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is
shed.
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.
Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we
know:
That the Dawn the Day is coming, and forth the Banners
go.
