Transcribed from the 1885 Socialist League Office edition byDavid Price,

CHANTS for SOCIALISTS

BY
WILLIAM MORRIS.

CONTENTS:

LONDON:
Socialist League Office,
13 FARRINGDON ROAD, HOLBORN VIADUCT, E.C.
1885.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

p. 2I havelooked at this claim by the light of history and my ownconscience, and it seems to me so looked at to be a most justclaim, and that resistance to it means nothing short of a denialof the hope of civilisation.

This then is the claim:—

It is right and necessary that all men should have work todo which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasantto do; and which should be done under such conditions aswould make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.

Turn that claim about as I may, think of it as long as I can,I cannot find that it is an exorbitant claim; yet again I say ifSociety would or could admit it, the face of the world would bechanged; discontent and strife and dishonesty would beended.  To feel that we were doing work useful to others andpleasant to ourselves, and that such work and its due rewardcould not fail us!  What serious harm could happen tous then?  And the price to be paid for so making the worldhappy is Revolution.

p. 3THE DAYIS COMING.

Come hither lads,and hearken, for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming when all shall be better thanwell.

And the tale shall be told of a country, a landin the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England in the days that are going tobe.

There more than one in a thousand in the daysthat are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancienthome.

For then—laugh not, but listen, to thisstrange tale of mine—
All folk that are in England shall be better lodged thanswine.

Then a man shall work and bethink him, andrejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.

Men in that time a-coming shall work and haveno fear
For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolfanear.

I tell you this for a wonder, that no man thenshall be glad
Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work hehad.

p.4For that which the worker winneth shall then be hisindeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed noseed.

O strange new wonderful justice!  But forwhom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shalllabour in vain.

Then all mine and all thine...