The Coming Victory (1891)
The struggle is coming. Arise and be ready,
Keep up close together; now steady, men, steady.
Capitalists and squatters are calling their hosts,
While policemen and volunteers throng to their posts.
With them are the thousands who boast of their might,
But we stand for virtue, for truth and the right ;
Then dread not the Gatling guns but valiantly stand
And fight till we banish blacklegs from our land.
Our foes may be classed as the knaves and the fools,
The men who make gain and their poor silly tools ;
Strike first at the knaves and entice men to rise,
And then the poor fools will be forced to grow wise.
The union heroes must surely prevail,
Our cause is a just one and so cannot fail ;
Then forward my comrades and rush on the foe,
And deal them a death wound in every blow.
Our swords are unsheathed, we have taken our vow,
That no halfway measures will do for us now ;
We want honest freedom, and will fight for to gain it,
And never give up till at last we attain it.
UNION GIRL, Clermont.
Notes
From the Brisbane newspaper the Worker Saturday 2 May 1891, p. 8.
This poem is one of some 30 such lyrics associated with the Shearers Strike that were published in the Worker between December 1890 and December 1891.