Alton Locke’s Song: 1848 by Charles Kingsley. Upton Sinclair, ed. 1915. The Cry for Justice

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Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Alton Locke’s Song: 1848

By Charles Kingsley

(English clergyman and novelist, 1819–1875; founder of the Christian Socialist movement. In the scene here quoted, a young University man is taken by a game-keeper to see the degradation of English village life)


WEEP, weep, weep and weep
For pauper, dolt and slave!
Hark! from wasted moor and fen
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men—	5
Work! or the grave!

Down, down, down and down,
With idler, knave, and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will not live by toil	10
Has no right on English soil!
God’s word’s our warrant!

Up, up, up and up!
Face your game and play it!
The night is past, behold the sun!	15
The idols fall, the lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
Who shall stay it?

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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