Songs of the Army of the Night Part 1

Songs of the Army of the Night.

by Francis Adams.

PREFACE.

A few words of preface seem necessary in sending out this little book.

It is to be looked on as the product of the life of a social worker in England, in his travels, and in Australia. The key-note of the First Part-"England"-is desperation, or, if any hope, then "desperate hope." A friend once reported to me a saying of Matthew Arnold's, that he did not believe in any man of intelligence taking a desperate view of the social problem in England. I am afraid that saying relegates me to the ranks of the fools, but I am content to remain there. I believe that never since 1381, which is the date of the Peasants' Revolt, has England presented such a spectacle of the happiness of the tens, of the misery of the millions. It is not by any means the artisan, or the general or the agricultural labourer, who is the only sufferer. All society groans under the slavery of stupendous toil and a pittance wage. The negro slavery of the Southern States of America was better than the white slavery of to-day all over the earth, but more particularly in Europe and in America. Capitalism is built on the dreadful wrong of recompensing Labour, not according to the worth of its work, but according to the worth of its members in the market of unlimited compet.i.tion, and that soon comes to mean the payment of what will hold body and soul together when in the enjoyment of health and strength. Landlordism is built on the dreadful wrong of sharing with Capitalism the plunder of Labour. Why are rents high in Australia? Because here Labour is scarcer, its wages correspondingly higher, and therefore Landlordism steps in to filch from Labour its hard-won comforts, and once more reduce it to the necessities of existence. The American slavers had to spend more in housing and keeping any fixed number of their slaves in serviceable condition than Capitalism spends in wages. Capitalism and Landlordism, like good Christian Inst.i.tutions, leave the living to keep alive their living, and the dead to bury their dead. This cannot continue for ever. At least all the intelligent portion of the community will grow to see the injustice and attempt to abolish it. But when will the great ma.s.s of unintelligent people who have won a large enough share of the plunder of their fellows to minister to their own comforts-when will these, also, awake and see? England will realize the desperation of her social problem when its desperation is shown her by fire and blood-then, and not till then! What shall teach her her sins to herself is what is even now teaching her her sins to Ireland.

I make no apology for several poems in the First Part which are fierce, which are even blood-thirsty. As I felt I wrote, and I will not lessen the truth of what inspired those feelings by eliminating or suppressing the record of them. Rather, let me ask you, whoever you be, to imagine what the cause was, from the effect in one who was (unhappily) born and bred into the dominant cla.s.s, and whose chief care and joy in life was in the pursuit of a culture which draws back instinctively from the violent and the terrible. I will go further. I will arraign my country and my day, because their iniquity would not let me follow out the laws of my nature, which were for luminosity and quiet, for the wide and genial view, but made me "take arms against a sea of troubles," hoping only too often "by opposing to end them." No, we make no apology for b.l.o.o.d.y sweat and for tears of fire wrung out of us in the Gethsemane and on the Calvary of our country: we make no apology to those whom we have the right to curse.

In the Second Part-"Here and There," the record of a short trip in the East-the sight of the sin which England has committed not only against herself, against Ireland, against Scotland, but against India, against China, against the sweetest and gentlest people in the earth, the j.a.panese-the sight of this, and of the signs of England's doom, the punishment for the abuse of the greatest trust any modern nation has had given to her, inspires a hatred which only that punishment can appease.

In the Third Part-"Australia"-there is neither ferocity nor blood-thirstiness. Its key-note is hope, hope that dreads but does not despair.

I may add that in this edition I have sacrificed all merely personal aspects of the poems to attempt to give the book a more complete totality. We know well enough that allowance will rarely be made for any of these things: that our plea for comprehension will too often be an idle one. None the less we make it, for the sake of those who are willing to attempt to realize the social problem and to seek within themselves what they can do for its solution. We have no care whatever as to what view they take of it. Let them be with us or against us, it matters not, if only they will make this effort, if only they will ponder it in their hearts. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of us are concerned in this problem. We are all of us true sons of Labour who have suffered the robbery of the wages of Compet.i.tion. One word more. The Australian is apt to deprecate the socialism of the European or the American. The darker aspects of the European or American civilization are not striking here. They are here; they are more than incipient, very much more; but they are not striking. Let such an one pause. "We speak of that which we do know," and, for the rest, not only do we bid "him that has ears, to hear," but "him that has eyes, to see."

Brothers all over the earth, brothers and sisters, you of that silent company whose speech is only in the unknown deeds of love, the unknown devotions, the unknown heroisms, it is to you we speak! Our heart is against your heart; you can feel it beat. Soul speaks to soul through lips whose utterance is a need. In your room alone, in your lonely walks, in the still hours of day and night, we will be with you. We will speak with you, we will plead with you, for these piteous ones. In the evening trees you shall hear the sound of our weeping. Our sobs shall shake in the wind of wintry nights. We are the spirit of those piteous ones, the wronged, the oppressed, the robbed, the murdered, and we bid you open your warm heart, your light-lit soul to us! We will thrill you with the clarion of hate and defiance and despair in the tempest of land and sea. You shall listen to us there also. We will touch your eyes and lips with fire. No, we will never let you go, till you are ours and theirs! And you too, O sufferers, you too shall stay with us, and shall have comfort. Look, we have suffered, we have agonized, we have longed to hasten the hour of rest. But beyond the darkness there is light, beyond the turbulence peace. "Courage, and be true to one another."

"_We bid you hope_!"

THIS BOOK.

_I give this Book_ TO YOU,-

_Man or woman_, _girl or boy_, _labourer_, _mechanic_, _clerk_, _house-servant_, _whoever you may be_, _whose wages are not the worth of your work_,-_no_, _nor a fraction of it-whose wages are the minimum which you and those like you_, _pressed by the desire for life in the dreadful struggle of_ "_Compet.i.tion_," _will consent to take from your Employers who_, _thanks to it_, _are able thus to rob you_:-

_I give it to_ YOU,

_in the hope that you may see how you are being robbed_,_-how Capital that is won by paying you your compet.i.tion wages is plunder_,_-how Rent that is won by the increased value of land that is owing to the industry of us all_, _is plunder_,_-how the Capitalist and Landowner who over-ride you_, _how the Master or Mistress who work you from morning to night_, _who domineer over you as servants and despise you_ (_or what is worse_, _pity you_) _as beggars_, _are the men and women whose sole t.i.tle to this is_, _that they have the audacity and skill to plunder you_, _and you the simplicity and folly not to see it and to submit to it_:-

_I give this Book to_ YOU,

_in the hope that you may at last realize this_, _and in your own fas.h.i.+on never cease the effort to make your fellow-sufferers realize it_:-

_I give it to_ YOU,

_in the hope that you may formally enrol yourself in the ranks of the Army of the Night_, _and that you will offer up the best that has been granted you of heart and soul and mind towards the working out of that better time when_, _in victorious peace_, _we silence our drums and trumpets_, _furl our banners_, _drag our cannons to their place of rest_, _and solemnly disarming ourselves_, _become citizens once more or_, _if soldiers_, _then soldiers of the Army of the Day_!

SONGS OF THE ARMY OF THE NIGHT.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . blessed are the mourners . . .

_Ye are the salt of the earth_."-_The Good tidings as given_ by MATTHEW.

PROEM.

"OUTSIDE LONDON."

In the black night, along the mud-deep roads, Amid the threatening boughs and ghastly streams, Hark! sounds that gird the darknesses like goads, Murmurs and rumours and reverberant dreams, Tramplings, breaths, movements, and a little light.- _The marching of the Army of the Night_!

The stricken men, the mad brute-beasts are keeping No more their places in the ditches or holes, But rise and join us, and the women, weeping Beside the roadways, rise like demon-souls.

Fill up the ranks! What s.h.i.+mmers there so bright?

_The bayonets of the Army of the Night_!

Fill up the ranks! We march in steadfast column, In wavering lines yet forming more and more; Men, women, children, sombre, silent, solemn, Rank follows rank like billows to the sh.o.r.e.

Dawnwards we tramp, towards the day and light.

_On_, _on and up_, _the Army of the Night_!

I.

"ENGLAND."

IN THE CAMP.

This is a leader's tent. "Who gathers here?"

Enter and see and listen. On the ground Men sit or stand, enter or disappear, Dark faces and deep voices all around.

One answers you. "You ask who gathers here?

Companions! Generals we have none, nor chief.

What need is there? The plan is all so clear- The future's hope, the present's grim relief!

"Food for us all, and clothes, and roofs come first.

The means to gain them? This, our leaguered band!

The hatred of the robber rich accursed Keeps foes together, makes fools understand.

"Beyond the present's faith, the future's hope Points to the dawning hour when all shall be But one. The man condemned shall fit the rope Around the hangman's neck, and both be free!

"The sun then rises on a happier land Where Wealth and Labour sound but as one word.

We drill, we train, we arm our leaguered band.

What is there more to tell you have not heard?"

This is a leader's tent. They gather here, Resolute, stern, menacing. On the ground They sit or stand, enter or disappear, Dark faces and deep voices all around.

"AXIOM."