'Eat more fruit!' the slogans say,
' More fish, more beef, more bread!'
But I'm on Unemployment pay
My third year now, and wed.
...
I am the Common Man.
I am the brute and the slave,
I am the fool, the despised
From the cradle to the grave.
...
How few there are with unsoiled hands,
And educated tongues,
Who'll stand by us, my working friends,
And help to right our wrongs.
...
We have borne good sons to broken men,
Nurtured them on our hungry breast,
And given them to our masters when
Their day of life was at its best.
...
God! how I've wearied for the Spring,
To hear the birds above me sing;
And see the blue within the sky,
For there were times I thought I'd die.
...
It's little I can tell o' classic things,
Homer an Dante strangers are to me,
That Troy an Tyre wis places ower the sea
Is a' I ken. Sae when my thochts tak wings
...
Standin' in Hunter's Bar ae nicht, gey fu',
A man crushed through the crood and searched my face,
'Guid Christ! '‘he stammered oot,' and is it you?'
I shook his hand, but him I couldna trace.
...
It's fine when ye stand in a queue
at the door o' the ‘Dole'
on a snawy day,
To ken that ye leive in the bonniest
...
Crawlin about like a snail in the mud,
Covered wi clammy blae,
ME, made after the image o' God -
Jings! but it's laughable, tae.
...