Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World (4th Australian edition)/Workers of the World
WORKERS OF THE WORLD.
(Air: "Lillibulero").
By Connell.
Stand up, ye toilers, why crouch ye like cravens?
Why clutch an existence of insult and want?
Why stand to be plucked by an army of ravens,
Or hoodwink'd for ever by twaddle and cant?
Think of the wrongs ye bear,
Think of the rags ye wear,
Think on the insults endur'd from your birth;
Tolling in snow and rain.
Rearing up heaps of grain,
All for the tyrants who grind you to earth.
Your brains are as keen as the brains of your masters,
In swiftness and strength ye surpass them by far;
Ye've brave hearts to teach you to laugh at disasters,
Ye vastly outnumber your tyrants in war.
Why, then, like cowards stand,
Using not brain or hand,
Thankful like dogs when they throw you a bone?
What right have they to take
Things that ye toil to make?
Know ye not, workers, that all is your own?
Rise in your might, brothers, bear it no longer;
Assemble in masses throughout the whole land;
Show these incapable who are the stronger
When workers and idlers confronted shall stand.
Thro' Castle, Court and Hill,
Over their acres all,
Onwards we'll press likes waves of the sea,
Claiming the wealth we've made,
Ending the spoiler's trade;
Labor shall triumph and mankind be free.
"War is Hell" for the workers. Let us make the Class War a nightmare for the masters.
"The poor—is any country his? What are to me your glories and your industries—they are not mine?