Labour — Capital — Land

IN that rich Archipelago of sea With fiery hills, thick woods wherein the mias Browses along the trees, and god-like men Leave monuments of speech too large for us, There are strange forest-trees. Far up, their roots Spread from the central trunk, and settle down Deep in the life-fed earth, seventy feet below. In the past days here grew another tree, On whose high fork the parasitic seed Fell and sprang up, and finding life and strength In the disease, decrepitude and death Of that it fed on, utterly consumed it, And stands the monument of Nature's crime! So Labour with his parasites, the two Great swollen Robbers, Land and Capital, Stands to the gaze of men but as a heap Of rotted dust whose only use must be To rich the roots of the proud stem that killed it!