In Trafalgar Square

THE stars shone faint through the smoky blue; The church-bells were ringing; Three girls, arms laced, were passing through, Tramping and singing. Their heads were bare: their short skirts swung As they went along; Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung Their defiant Song. It was not too clean, their feminine lay, But it thrilled me quite With its challenge to taskmaster villainous day And infamous night, With its threat to the robber Rich, the Proud, The respectable Free. And I laughed and shouted to them aloud, And they shouted to me! 'Girls, that's the shout, the shout we shall utter When, with rifles and spades, We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter, On the barricades!'