Song of the New Soldier and Worker

Song of the New Soldier and Worker (1920)
by Claude McKay

First published in Workers' Dreadnought , 3 April 1920 24 under pseudonym Hugh Hope

2651673Song of the New Soldier and Worker1920Claude McKay

Song of the New Soldier and Worker

We are tired, tired, tired—we are work-weary and war-weary;
   What though the skies are soft-blue and the birds still sing
And the balmy air of day is like wine? Life is dreary
   And the whole wide world is sick and suffering.

   We are weary, weary, weary, sad and tired no longer
Will we go on as before, glad to be the willing tools
   Of the hard and heartless few, the favoured and the stronger,
Who have strength to crush and kill, for we are fools.

We will calmly fold our arms sore from labouring and aching,
   We will not still feed and guard the hungry, hideous, huge machine
That yawns with ugly mouth, performs its grim task of life-breaking
   Like a fat whore, coarse and brazen and obscene.

O, to pull the thing to pieces! O, to wreck it all and smash
   With the power and the will that only holy hate can give;
Even though our broken bodies may be caught in the crash—
   Even so—that children yet unborn may live!

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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