All hail, our martyred heroes,
Ye men of lion heart;
Ye pay the price of playing
Emancipators part
Ye follow Progress’s thorny track,
The well-worn martyrs trail -
The curb of Truth, Sincerity,
Was ever yet The Gaol.
What is your crime, what have ye done,
To merit murderer’s fate?
“Why ask?” we say, “it is enough,
We merit Masters’ hate.”
As tyrants base did ye essay,
To aggravate men’s sorrow?
Or was it this, ye showed the way
For better things tomorrow.
No selfish end inspired your deed,
No motive base your aim;
O freedom, while you fret in chains,
Comes night akin to shame.
Twelve working men in fetters,
For Working-Class ideal!
Ah. Everyone with workers heart,
Humiliation feels.
Yet chains can be High Honour’s badge,
And prison walls a palace;
When brimming o’re with sacrifice,
A pannikin a chalice.
O History shall less harshly judge,
Less harshly, aye, more true,
And garlanding her heroes,
Delight to honour you.
As bursting beams of a clouded sun,
Athwart a troubled sea,
Give their eerie warning,
Of the tempest soon to be.
The gleam of your golden sacrifice,
Through Iniquity’s shadowing gloom,
O’er Labor’s restless ocean,
Is herald of Capital’s doom.
When the storm arisen from words ye spake,
With the might of a tempest’s waves,
Will wreck our masters of tyrant make,
On the rocks of the wrongs of slaves
W. H. Levey, Direct Action 23rd December 1916
