Claude McKay's Early Poetry: A Digital CollectionMain MenuIntroduction: About this SiteAmardeep Singh, Lehigh UniversityConstab Ballads (1912) -- Digital EditionClaude McKay's "Constab Ballads"Songs of Jamaica (1912): Digital EditionBook of poetry by Claude McKay. Preface by Walter Jekyll.Early Uncollected Poetry (1911-1922)Uncollected Poems by Claude McKay published in Jamaican, British, and American magazinesWorkers Dreadnought PoetrySpring in New Hampshire (1920): Digital EditionHarlem Shadows (1922): Digital EditionHarlem Shadows Digital EditionSelected Poems of Claude McKay (1953)Approximating the Table of Contents of "Selected Poems of Claude McKay"Criticism and Contextual EssaysWorks CitedWorks Cited for "Claude McKay's Early Poetry (1912-1922)"TEI/XML Editions (in progress/coming soon)Links to TEI versions of these textsAmardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1
Song of the New Soldier and Worker
12016-11-14T14:01:44+00:00Amardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1691Screen Capture of Song of the New Soldier and Worker from Workers Dreadnoughtplain2016-11-14T14:01:44+00:00Amardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1
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12016-11-11T14:25:59+00:00Song of the New Soldier and Worker3Claude McKay. Workers Dreadnought. April 3, 1920plain2016-11-14T14:02:14+00:001920Capitalism, Labor, Revolution, Class We are tired, tired, tired—we are work-weary and war-weary; What though the skies are soft-blue and the birds still sing And the balmy air of day is like wine? Life is dreary And the whole wide world is sick and suffering.
We are weary, weary, weary, sad and tired no longer Will we go on as before, glad to be the willing tools Of the hard and heartless few, the favoured and the stronger, Who have strength to crush and kill, for we are fools.
We will calmly fold our arms sore from laboring and aching, We will not still feed and guard the hungry, hideous, huge machine That yawns with ugly mouth, performs its grim task of life-breaking Like a fat whore, coarse and brazen and obscene.
O, to pull the thing to pieces! O, to wreck it all and smash With the power and the will that only holy hate can give; Even though our broken bodies may be caught in the crash— Even so—that children yet unborn may live!
--Workers Dreadnought, April 3, 1920. Signed as "Hugh Hope"
