The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945Main MenuThe Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914–1945Volume 19 | 2023 | General IssueCFP Special Issue, Volume 22 (2026) : Contingency, Precarity, and Jeopardy: Labor in the Space BetweenCFP | Space Between 26th Annual Conference | Peace and Conflict in the Space BetweenArchiveSubmission GuidelinesReviews and Review EssaysEditors | Editorial Board | Advisory CommitteeThe Space Between Society
Song of the New Soldier and Worker (April 3, 1920. Signed as Hugh Hope). Claude McKay. Workers' Dreadnought.
1media/Claude McKay Song of the New Soldier and Worker Workers Dreadnought_thumb.png2021-03-01T18:48:52-08:00Jennifer Poulos Nesbitt62bc3cb599d3c15be3205b879d3578d58552b09254011Song of the New Soldier and Worker (April 3, 1920. Signed as Hugh Hope). Claude McKay. Workers' Dreadnought.plain2021-03-01T18:48:52-08:00Jennifer Poulos Nesbitt62bc3cb599d3c15be3205b879d3578d58552b092
Song of the New Soldier and Worker (April 3, 1920. Signed as Hugh Hope)
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 labouring, 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!
