Union Songs
The Hunger-March
A Poem by Hugh Owen Meredith [published 1911]
Step out, step out, against the rain
And hold the banner high,
With hungry belly, hungry brain,
With heart and tongue gone dry;
Though rough and slouching dogs we be,
The dregs of Englishmen,
The world shall hear of you and me -
They'll tell the children then!When every man has food to eat
And change of clothes to wear,
No honest worker on the street,
No room, nor cupboard bare;
When all good English knIves are free
To cut and come again,
The world shall hear of you and me -
They'll tell the children then!They'll tell them how we grew in slums
Ill-featured, underfed,
Of all the misery that comes
To heart and hand and head,
When boy or girl is set to do
The work they steal from men,
The world shall hear of me and you -
They'll tell the children then!They'll tell them of the march we're on
Around the Commons' House,
Of how we passed each restaurant
Where gentlemen carouse,
Of how without a spot of tea
We tramped from ten to ten,
The world shall hear of you and rue -
They'll tell the children then!There may be with us idle louts
Who only want to shirk,
The system makes men 'ins and outs,'
It trains them not to work!
Besides there's many more than we
Of idle gentlemen,
The world shall hear of you and me -
They'll tell the children then!Then step it out against the rain
And hold the banner high,
Don't think your lives have been in vain
Because the years go by:
The change will come, the time will be
In sixty years or ten,
The world shall hear of you and me
They'll tell the children then!Then step it out against the rain
And hold the banner high,
Don't think your lives have been in vain
Because the years go by:
The change will come, the time will be
In sixty years or ten,
The world shall hear of you and me -
They'll tell the children then!
Notes
This poem comes from the collection 'Weekday Poems' published by Edward Arnold in 1911
More work from Hugh Owen Meredith in this collection
union songs..........a selection by mark gregory