The Bottom Dog. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

He loved his master dearly in the days of long ago ;
   His dirty kennel and his scanty food
To him were blessings, and he sought no other things to know,
   And all the world looked on and called it good.
But now, because this canine dares to bark for something more,
   The masters curse him for a greedy hog,
And wish that they could kick him as they did in days of yore,
   To teach him he is but the Bottom Dog. 

In days of old when foreign thieves his master’s house would spoil,
   He thought it but his duty and his "bis,"
To guard his master's property—the fruits of others' toil,
   With life and limb as though these things were his.
To-day he views his master with distrust and e'en with scorn,
   Much as the Bull looked on the bloated frog.
His faithfulness has vanished through the terrors he has borne,
   And now they call him "Bolshie Bottom Dog." 

Ungrateful whelp! hast thou forgot thy master's loving care ?
   Regardless of your puny puppy’s whine,
To shield you from the wintry blast, and summer heat and glare,
   Consigned you to the comforts of the mine.
Hast thou not learned in all these years the dignity of work?
   The pride of being just a human cog
In those vast wheels of industry that grind for those who shirk ?
   Oh! bad, unpatriotic Bottom Dog! 

Now just because some dogs have lost an eye, a paw, or leg,
   They snarl and growl at Barnes and Clynes and Hodge—
The master's friends—who tell them if they’ll just sit up and beg
   There’ll be more offal for the Bottom Dog.
But these are signs the mongrel, who is not devoid of pluck,
   With instinct clearing of its mental fog,
Will seize the thieves who rob him and I wish the bounder luck
   To end the days of Top and Bottom Dog.

F. G. Thompson

The Question. (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is a Labour man? He who has sold
His class and their Cause in the shambles of Gold,
For pelf, and a place in the council of Greed,
Weaving snares for those dupes Want and Ignorance breed,
Where the offspring of Toil, from the cot to the grave,
Are consigned to the mart of the modern wage-slave. 

Here "organised Labour" support and applaud
The Thugs of all progress, Cant, Falsehood and Fraud;
And, like autumn leaves borne on the blast of the storm,
They are whirled in the vortex of futile reform.
Against the class currents they struggle in vain,
Till they sink, where no trace of their efforts remain. 

When Knowledge imparts to the people her power.
Slavish fear shall depart from their hearts in that hour;
And thrusting aside tyrant forms of the past,
Revolution shall crown them with glory at last.
The Labour pest, hurled from its seat of ill-fame,
Shall be hailed a political relic of shame.
Then time in its fulness will give Freedom birth,
When the Socialist era shall gladden the earth.

F. G. Thompson.