London, William Blake
Jerusalem, William Blake
Workers of the World Awaken, Joe Hill
Joe Hill, Alfred Hayes
Woodman, Spare That Tree, George Morris
Inversnaid, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Laudato Si, Pope Francis
Only a Pawn in Their Game, Bob Dylan
Mississippi Goddam, Nina Simone
Still I Rise, Mary Angelou
The United Fruit Co., Pablo Neruda
Bosnia Tune, Joseph Brodsky
Partisans’ Song, Hirsh Glik
Advertisement for the Waldorf Astoria, Langston Hughes
Justice, Langston Hughes
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front, Wendell Berry
Do You Hear The People Sing? (Les Miserables)
…..Alain Boublil and Henry Kretzmer (Claude-Michel Schönberg)
Go Down Moses, African-American Spiritual, author unknown

 
 


London
by William Blake

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

 
 
 

Jerusalem
by William Blake

Did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Til we have build Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

 
 
 

Workers of the World Awaken
by Joe Hill

Workers of the world, awaken!
Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken
By exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission
From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition
To be good and willing slaves?

If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean
They can tie with mighty chains
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill,
Fleets and armies of the nation,
Will at their command stand still.

Join the union, fellow workers,
Men and women, side by side;
We will crush the greedy shirkers
Like a sweeping, surging tide;
For united we are standing,
But divided we will fall;
Let this be our understanding-
“All for one and one for all.”

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might;
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying,
We’ll have freedom, love and health.
When the grand red flag is flying
On the Worker’s Commonwealth.

 
 
 

Joe Hill
by Alfred Hayes

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Woodman, Spare That Tree
by George Morris

Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.

Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here too my sisters played.

My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand —
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand!

My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.

Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot:
While I’ve a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.

 
 
 

Inversnaid
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds, Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

 
 
 

Encyclical Letter Laudato Si issued May 24, 2015
by Pope Francis

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Only a Pawn in Their Game
by Bob Dylan

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Mississippi Goddam
by Nina Simone

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

The United Fruit Co.
by Pablo Neruda

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Bosnia Tune
by Joseph Brodsky

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

The Partisans’ Song
by Hirsh Glik

You must not say that you now walk the final way,
because the darkened heavens hide the blue of day.
The time we’ve longed for will at last draw near,
and our steps, as drums, will sound that we are here.

From land all green with palms to lands all white with snow,
we now arrive with all our pain and all our woe.
Where our blood sprayed out and came to touch the land,
there our courage and our faith will rise and stand.

The early morning sun will brighten our day,
and yesterday with our foe will fade away,
But if the sun delays and in the east remains –
This song as motto generations must remain.

This song was written with our blood and not with lead,
It’s not a little tune that birds sing overhead,
This song a people sang amid collapsing walls,
With pistols in hand they heeded to the call.

 
 
 

Advertisement for the Waldorf Astoria
by Langston Hughes

Fine living . . . a la carte?
Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!

LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
new Waldorf-Astoria:

“All the luxuries of private home. . . .”
Now, won’t that be charming when the last flop-house
has turned you down this winter?

Furthermore:
“It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel
world. . . .” It cost twenty-eight million dollars. The fa-
mous Oscar Tschirky is in charge of banqueting.
Alexandre Gastaud is chef. It will be a distinguished
background for society.
So when you’ve no place else to go, homeless and hungry
ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags–
(Or do you still consider the subway after midnight good
enough?)

ROOMERS
Take a room at the new Waldorf, you down-and-outers–
sleepers in charity’s flop-houses where God pulls a
long face, and you have to pray to get a bed.
They serve swell board at the Waldorf-Astoria. Look at the menu, will
you:

GUMBO CREOLE
CRABMEAT IN CASSOLETTE
BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF
SMALL ONIONS IN CREAM
WATERCRESS SALAD
PEACH MELBA

Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.
Why not?
Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of
your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers
because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed gar-
ments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends
and live easy.
(Or haven’t you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bit-
ter bread of charity?)
Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get
warm, anyway. You’ve got nothing else to do.

 
 
 

Justice
by Langston Hughes

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

 
 
 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Do You Hear The People Sing (Les Miserables)
Alain Boublil and Henry Kretzmer (Claude-Michel Schönberg)

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Go Down Moses
African-American Spiritual
(author unknown)

Louis Armstrong lyrics

Go down Moses way down in Egypt land
Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go

When Israel was in Egypt land
Let My people go
Oppressed so hard they could not stand
Let My people go

So the God seyeth, Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land
Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go

So Moses went to Egypt land
Let My people go
He made all Pharaohs understand
Let My people go

Yes The Lord said, Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land
Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go

Thus spoke the Lord, bold Moses said
Let My people go
If not I’ll smite, your firstborns dead
Let My people go

God, The Lord said, Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land
Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go

Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go

The United Methodist Hymnal Number 448

When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
let my people go;
oppressed so hard they could not stand,
let my people go.
Refrain:
Go down, (go down) Moses, (Moses)
way down in Egypt’s land;
tell old Pharaoh
to let my people go!

“Thus saith the Lord,” bold Moses said,
let my people go;
“if not, I’ll smite your first-born dead,”
let my people go.
(Refrain)

No more shall they in bondage toil,
let my people go;
let them come out with Egypt’s spoil,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

We need not always weep and mourn,
let my people go;
and wear those slavery chains forlorn,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

Come, Moses, you will not get lost,
let my people go;
stretch out your rod and come across,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

As Israel stood by the water’s side,
let my people go;
at God’s command it did divide,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

When they had reached the other shore,
let my people go;
they sang a song of triumph o’er,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

O Moses, the cloud shall cleave the way,
let my people go;
a fire by night, a shade by day,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

Your foes shall not before you stand,
let my people go;
and you’ll possess fair Canaan’s land,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

This world’s a wilderness of woe,
let my people go;
O let us on to Canaan go,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

O let us all from bondage flee,
let my people go;
and let us all in Christ be free,
let my people go.
(Refrain)

From the Haggadah

When Israel was in Egypt land,
Let my people go.
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.

Refrain:

Go Down, Moses, way down in Egypt land,
Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.

*       *       *

Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said,
Let my people go.
If not I’ll smite your people dead,
Let my people go.           (Refrain)

*         *      *

As Israel stood by the water side,
Let my people go.
By God’s command it did divide,
Let my people go.          (Refrain)