WHAT ENGLISH WORKMEN SING.
“The Secularist Manual of Songs and Ceremonies ”
has recently attracted some notoriety, from the
allusion made to it by Gladstone in a recent speech.
It is the creed and song-book, so to speak, of the
revolutionary working classes in England, and
a correspondent furnishes some specimens of
the rhyme it contains, of which the subjoined
are the most unobjectionable :
“The seed ye sow another reaps,
The wealth ye find another keeps,
The robes ye make another wears,
The arms ye forge another bears!”
Here are a couple of verses of Earnest James’
“Song of the Lower Classes” :
“We plow and sow, we’re so very, very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay.
‘Tis we bless the plain with the growing grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our places we know, we’re so very low,
‘ Tis down at the landlord’s feet;
We’re not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.
Down, down the hill we go, we’re so very, very low,
To the hall of the deep-sunk mines;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow
Where the crown of a despot shines.
And whene’er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay;
We’re far too low to vote the tax,
But none too low to pay.”
Another piece, called ” The People,” has a lively ring about it:
“Some folks will sing ‘ God Bless the King’
Or Queen at public dinners,
And drink the health of doubtful saints,
And very certain sinners.
But we do not toast to-night
The court or camp or steeple;
We here a different theme indite —
‘The people, boys! the people.’
If history we read aright,
Tis plain unto my seeming,
One half the troubles of this world
Arise from rulers’ scheming.
They plot to work each other ill;
Their subjects treat like cattle—
Yet when they’re in a mess expect
That we will fight the battle.”
Sacramento Daily Union 16 December 1871