Poems for Workers (Gomez 1925)/The Red Guard
The Red Guard
By RALPH CHAPLIN.
Sons of the dawn! No more shall you enslave
Nor lull them with your honeyed lies to sleep,
Nor lead them on like herds of human sheep,
To hopeless slaughter for the loot you crave.
For now upon you, wave on mighty wave,
The iron-stern battalions rise and leap
To extirpate your breed and bury deep
And sow with salt the unlamented grave!
Accursed Monster—nightmare of the years—
Pause but a moment ere you pass away!
Pause and behold the earth made clean and pure—
Our earth, that you have drenched with blood and tears—
Then greet the crimson usurer of Day—
The mighty Proletarian Dictature!