Chapter 1

Transcribed from the 1915 Longmans, Green and Company edition by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Book cover]

THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE AND CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS

BY WILLIAM MORRIS

* * * * *

LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1915

All rights reserved

FORWARD

“The Pilgrims of Hope” appeared in _The Commonweal_ between March 1885 and July 1886, its title being decided on with the publication of the second part. Sections I, IV, and VIII were included in _Poems by the Way_ after the author abandoned his intention of revising it as a whole. “To be concluded” stands at the bottom of the last instalment.

“Chants for Socialists,” consisting of songs and poems written for various occasions and collected into a penny pamphlet published by the Socialist League in 1885, is here printed entire (with the exception of “The Message of the March Wind,” pp. 3–6), although “The Day is Coming,” “The Voice of Toil,” and “All for the Cause,” were included in _Poems by the Way_. “A Death Song,” which also appears there, was written for the funeral of Alfred Linnell, who died from injuries received at a Demonstration in Trafalgar Square on November 20, 1887. It first appeared in pamphlet form, with a musical setting by Malcolm Lawson.

“May Day” [1892] and “May Day, 1894,” appeared in _Justice_.

CONTENTS

PAGE PILGRIMS OF HOPE: THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND 3 THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET 7 SENDING TO THE WAR 11 MOTHER AND SON 15 NEW BIRTH 19 THE NEW PROLETARIAN 24 IN PRISON—AND AT HOME 30 THE HALF OF LIFE GONE 35 A NEW FRIEND 39 READY TO DEPART 43 A GLIMPSE OF THE COMING DAY 47 MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE 51 THE STORY’S ENDING 54 CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS: THE DAY IS COMING 61 THE VOICE OF TOIL 65 NO MASTER 67 ALL FOR THE CAUSE 68 THE MARCH OF THE WORKERS 70 DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN 73 A DEATH SONG 75 MAY DAY [1892] 77 MAY DAY, 1894 80

THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE

I THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND

FAIR now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field; Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From township to township, o’er down and by tillage Far, far have we wandered and long was the day, But now cometh eve at the end of the village, Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.

There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about; The moon’s rim is rising, a star glitters o’er us, And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt.

Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover; This eve art thou given to gladness and me.

Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken: Three fields further on, as they told me down there, When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken, We might see from the hill-top the great city’s glare.

Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! From London it bloweth, And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest; Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth, But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best.

Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory Has been but a burden they scarce might abide.

Hark! the March wind again of a people is telling; Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim.

This land we have loved in our love and our leisure For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach; The wide hills o’er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach.

The singers have sung and the builders have builded, The painters have fashioned their tales of delight; For what and for whom hath the world’s book been gilded, When all is for these but the blackness of night?

How long and for what is their patience abiding? How oft and how oft shall their story be told, While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old?

* * * * *

COME back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire, And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; For there in a while shall be rest and desire, And there shall the morrow’s uprising be sweet.

Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind us And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night, How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us; For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light.

Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished, Like the autumn-sown wheat ’neath the snow lying green, Like the love that o’ertook us, unawares and uncherished, Like the babe ’neath thy girdle that groweth unseen,

So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth— Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear; It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth; It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear:

For it beareth the message: “Rise up on the morrow And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife; Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow, And seek for men’s love in the short days of life.”

But lo, the old inn, and the lights and the fire, And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, And to-morrow’s uprising to deeds shall be sweet.

II THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET

IN the midst of the bridge there we stopped and we wondered In London at last, and the moon going down, All sullied and red where the mast-wood was sundered By the void of the night-mist, the breath of the town.

On each side lay the City, and Thames ran between it Dark, struggling, unheard ’neath the wheels and the feet. A strange dream it was that we ever had seen it, And strange was the hope we had wandered to meet.

Was all nought but confusion? What man and what master Had each of these people that hastened along? Like a flood flowed the faces, and faster and faster Went the drift of the feet of the hurrying throng.

Till all these seemed but one thing, and we twain another, A thing frail and feeble and young and unknown; What sign mid all these to tell foeman from brother? What sign of the hope in our hearts that had grown?

* * * * *

WE went to our lodging afar from the river, And slept and forgot—and remembered in dreams; And friends that I knew not I strove to deliver From a crowd that swept o’er us in measureless streams,

Wending whither I knew not: till meseemed I was waking To the first night in London, and lay by my love, And she worn and changed, and my very heart aching With a terror of soul that forbade me to move.

Till I woke, in good sooth, and she lay there beside me, Fresh, lovely in sleep; but awhile yet I lay, For the fear of the dream-tide yet seemed to abide me In the cold and sad time ere the dawn of the day.

Then I went to the window, and saw down below me The market-wains wending adown the dim street, And the scent of the hay and the herbs seemed to know me, And seek out my heart the dawn’s sorrow to meet.

They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless faces The dull houses stared on the prey they had trapped; ’Twas as though they had slain all the fair morning places Where in love and in leisure our joyance had happed.

My heart sank; I murmured, “What’s this we are doing In this grim net of London, this prison built stark With the greed of the ages, our young lives pursuing A phantom that leads but to death in the dark?”

Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it striving, And now here and there a few people went by. As an image of what was once eager and living Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to die.

Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its pleasure Was light, and unworthy, had been and was gone; If hope had deceived us, if hid were its treasure, Nought now would be left us of all life had won.

* * * * *

O LOVE, stand beside me; the sun is uprisen On the first day of London; and shame hath been here. For I saw our new life like the bars of a prison, And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear.

Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes are chiding! Yea, but life is no longer as stories of yore; From us from henceforth no fair words shall be hiding The nights of the wretched, the days of the poor.

Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we have faltered, For ourselves, for each other, while yet we were twain; And no whit of the world by our sorrow was altered, Our faintness grieved nothing, our fear was in vain.

Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our passion, We shall feel all henceforth as we felt it erewhile; But now from all this the due deeds we shall fashion Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without guile.

Let us grieve then—and help every soul in our sorrow; Let us fear—and press forward where few dare to go; Let us falter in hope—and plan deeds for the morrow, The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the foe.

As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping, And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart’s embrace, While all round about him the bullets are sweeping, But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his place;

Yea, so let our lives be! e’en such that hereafter, When the battle is won and the story is told, Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter, And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold.

NOTE.—This section had the following note in _The Commonweal_. It is the intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in the “Message of the March Wind” were already touched by sympathy with the cause of the people.

III SENDING TO THE WAR

IT was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun, But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire’s thick-lipped son, A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away, And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to say Of the war and its why and wherefore—and we said it often enough; The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough. But I held my peace and wondered; for I thought of the folly of men, The fair lives ruined and broken that ne’er could be mended again; And the tale by lies bewildered, and no cause for a man to choose; Nothing to curse or to bless—just a game to win or to lose.

But here were the streets of London—strife stalking wide in the world; And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. And who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops displayed The toys of rich men’s folly, by blinded labour made; And still from naught to nothing the bright-skinned horses drew Dull men and sleek-faced women with never a deed to do; While all about and around them the street-flood ebbed and flowed, Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed ’neath the load. Lo the sons of an ancient people! And for this they fought and fell In the days by fame made glorious, in the tale that singers tell.

We two we stood in the street in the midst of a mighty crowd, The sound of its mingled murmur in the heavens above was loud, And earth was foul with its squalor—that stream of every day, The hurrying feet of labour, the faces worn and grey, Were a sore and grievous sight, and enough and to spare had I seen Of hard and pinching want midst our quiet fields and green; But all was nothing to this, the London holiday throng. Dull and with hang-dog gait they stood or shuffled along, While the stench from the lairs they had lain in last night went up in the wind, And poisoned the sun-lit spring: no story men can find Is fit for the tale of their lives; no word that man hath made Can tell the hue of their faces, or their rags by filth o’er-laid: For this hath our age invented—these are the sons of the free, Who shall bear our name triumphant o’er every land and sea. Read ye their souls in their faces, and what shall help you there? Joyless, hopeless, shameless, angerless, set is their stare: This is the thing we have made, and what shall help us now, For the field hath been laboured and tilled and the teeth of the dragon shall grow.

But why are they gathered together? what is this crowd in the street? This is a holiday morning, though here and there we meet The hurrying tradesman’s broadcloth, or the workman’s basket of tools. Men say that at last we are rending the snares of knaves and fools; That a cry from the heart of the nation against the foe is hurled, And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. The soldiers are off to the war, we are here to see the sight, And all our griefs shall be hidden by the thought of our country’s might. ’Tis the ordered anger of England and her hope for the good of the Earth That we to-day are speeding, and many a gift of worth Shall follow the brand and the bullet, and our wrath shall be no curse, But a blessing of life to the helpless—unless we are liars and worse— And these that we see are the senders; these are they that speed The dread and the blessing of England to help the world at its need.

Sick unto death was my hope, and I turned and looked on my dear, And beheld her frightened wonder, and her grief without a tear, And knew how her thought was mine—when, hark! o’er the hubbub and noise, Faint and a long way off, the music’s measured voice, And the crowd was swaying and swaying, and somehow, I knew not why, A dream came into my heart of deliverance drawing anigh. Then with roll and thunder of drums grew the music louder and loud, And the whole street tumbled and surged, and cleft was the holiday crowd, Till two walls of faces and rags lined either side of the way. Then clamour of shouts rose upward, as bright and glittering gay Came the voiceful brass of the band, and my heart beat fast and fast, For the river of steel came on, and the wrath of England passed Through the want and the woe of the town, and strange and wild was my thought, And my clenched hands wandered about as though a weapon they sought.

Hubbub and din was behind them, and the shuffling haggard throng, Wandering aimless about, tangled the street for long; But the shouts and the rhythmic noise we still heard far away, And my dream was become a picture of the deeds of another day. Far and far was I borne, away o’er the years to come, And again was the ordered march, and the thunder of the drum, And the bickering points of steel, and the horses shifting about ’Neath the flashing swords of the captains—then the silence after the shout— Sun and wind in the street, familiar things made clear, Made strange by the breathless waiting for the deeds that are drawing anear. For woe had grown into will, and wrath was bared of its sheath, And stark in the streets of London stood the crop of the dragon’s teeth. Where then in my dream were the poor and the wall of faces wan? Here and here by my side, shoulder to shoulder of man, Hope in the simple folk, hope in the hearts of the wise, For the happy life to follow, or death and the ending of lies, Hope is awake in the faces angerless now no more, Till the new peace dawn on the world, the fruit of the people’s war.

War in the world abroad a thousand leagues away, While custom’s wheel goes round and day devoureth day. Peace at home!—what peace, while the rich man’s mill is strife, And the poor is the grist that he grindeth, and life devoureth life?

IV MOTHER AND SON

NOW sleeps the land of houses, and dead night holds the street, And there thou liest, my baby, and sleepest soft and sweet; My man is away for awhile, but safe and alone we lie; And none heareth thy breath but thy mother, and the moon looking down from the sky On the weary waste of the town, as it looked on the grass-edged road Still warm with yesterday’s sun, when I left my old abode, Hand in hand with my love, that night of all nights in the year; When the river of love o’erflowed and drowned all doubt and fear, And we two were alone in the world, and once, if never again, We knew of the secret of earth and the tale of its labour and pain.

Lo amidst London I lift thee, and how little and light thou art, And thou without hope or fear, thou fear and hope of my heart! Lo here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life; But how will it be if thou livest, and enterest into the strife, And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee, When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet ’twixt thee and me Shall rise that wall of distance, that round each one doth grow, And maketh it hard and bitter each other’s thought to know? Now, therefore, while yet thou art little and hast no thought of thine own, I will tell thee a word of the world, of the hope whence thou hast grown,

Of the love that once begat thee, of the sorrow that hath made Thy little heart of hunger, and thy hands on my bosom laid. Then mayst thou remember hereafter, as whiles when people say All this hath happened before in the life of another day; So mayst thou dimly remember this tale of thy mother’s voice, As oft in the calm of dawning I have heard the birds rejoice, As oft I have heard the storm-wind go moaning through the wood, And I knew that earth was speaking, and the mother’s voice was good.

Now, to thee alone will I tell it that thy mother’s body is fair, In the guise of the country maidens who play with the sun and the air, Who have stood in the row of the reapers in the August afternoon, Who have sat by the frozen water in the highday of the moon, When the lights of the Christmas feasting were dead in the house on the hill, And the wild geese gone to the salt marsh had left the winter still. Yea, I am fair, my firstling; if thou couldst but remember me! The hair that thy small hand clutcheth is a goodly sight to see; I am true, but my face is a snare; soft and deep are my eyes, And they seem for men’s beguiling fulfilled with the dreams of the wise. Kind are my lips, and they look as though my soul had learned Deep things I have never heard of. My face and my hands are burned By the lovely sun of the acres; three months of London-town And thy birth-bed have bleached them indeed—“But lo, where the edge of the gown” (So said thy father one day) “parteth the wrist white as curd From the brown of the hands that I love, bright as the wing of a bird.”

Such is thy mother, O firstling, yet strong as the maidens of old, Whose spears and whose swords were the warders of homestead, of field and of fold. Oft were my feet on the highway, often they wearied the grass; From dusk unto dusk of the summer three times in a week would I pass To the downs from the house on the river through the waves of the blossoming corn. Fair then I lay down in the even, and fresh I arose on the morn, And scarce in the noon was I weary. Ah, son, in the days of thy strife, If thy soul could harbour a dream of the blossom of my life! It would be as sunlit meadows beheld from a tossing sea, And thy soul should look on a vision of the peace that is to be.

Yet, yet the tears on my cheek! And what is this doth move My heart to thy heart, beloved, save the flood of yearning love? For fair and fierce is thy father, and soft and strange are his eyes That look on the days that shall be with the hope of the brave and the wise. It was many a day that we laughed as over the meadows we walked, And many a day I hearkened and the pictures came as he talked; It was many a day that we longed, and we lingered late at eve Ere speech from speech was sundered, and my hand his hand could leave. Then I wept when I was alone, and I longed till the daylight came; And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping dame (No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the limes; All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues leapt Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from it crept, And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor, And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open door. The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he stood Beyond the crimson daisies and the bush of southernwood. Then side by side together through the grey-walled place we went, And O the fear departed, and the rest and sweet content!