  Tell me not, in doctored numbers, Life is but a name for work! For the labour that encumbers Me I wish that I could shirk. Life is phony! Life is rotten! And the wealthy have no soul; Why should you be picking cotton? Why should I be mining coal? Not employment and not sorrow Is my destined end or way; But to act that each to-morrow Finds me idler than to-day. Work is long, and plutes are lunching; Money is the thing I crave; But my heart continues punching Funeral time-clocks to the grave. In the world's uneven battle, In the swindle known as life, Be not like the stockyards cattle— Stick your partner with a knife! Trust no Boss, however pleasant! Capital is but a curse! Strike,—strike in the living present! Fill, oh fill, the bulging purse! Lives of strikers all remind us We can make our lives a crime, And, departing, leave behind us Bills for double overtime. Charges that, perhaps another, Working for a stingy ten Bucks a day, some mining brother Seeing, shall walk out again. Let us, then, be up and striking, Discontent with all of it; Still undoing, still disliking, Learn to labour—and to quit. |
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