Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/789

 The Rebel

(English historian and poet, born 1871; resigned from parliament to conduct a campaign against the control of England's political machinery by vested wealth)

There is a wall of which the stones Are lies and bribes and dead men's bones. And wrongfully this evil wall Denies what all men made for all, And shamelessly this wall surrounds Our homestead and our native grounds.

But I will gather and I will ride, And I will summon a countryside, And many a man shall hear my halloa Who never had thought the horn to follow; And many a man shall ride with me Who never had thought on earth to see High Justice in her armoury.

When we find them where they stand, A mile of men on either hand, I mean to charge from right away And force the flanks of their array, And press them inward from the plains, And drive them clamoring down the lanes, And gallop and harry and have them down, And carry the gates and hold the town. Then shall I rest me from my ride With my great anger satisfied.