Page:When the Leaves Come Out (Chaplin 1917).pdf/21

  Our weapons are "your" vast machines; they answer to OUR call. The hands that guide them rule the world—the greatest force of all— A power so mighty that it makes all other power small.

What will you say when that Day comes, when on the land and sea Your sullen slaves have seen the Light of better times to be, And leave their tasks to toil no more until they can be free?

When wheels and drills and looms will cease and each tool idle stands, And mines and mills and factories are silent in all lands— When you are driven forth to earn your living with your hands!

Ah, do not drivel platitudes at anything we do, The dirty weapons you have used will suit our purpose too. And we will pay you back in full just as we learned from you !

For in our strong, hard hands we hold a sure, resistless might, More terrible than all your lies or guns and dynamite. (What e'er is good for you is "wrong"; what's good for us is "right.")

You kept us in uncertainty, heart-hopeless and afraid. You gave us cast-off crusts and rags, and claimed that we were "paid," You blighted us to suit your needs, then mocked the thing you made. 