UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Thursday 18 March 2010

In Memory Of The Paris Commune, Born March 18, 1871

What wingéd shape, with waving torch aflame,
Wild with winds of March, and streaming hair
Above the storm clouds, doth to men declare
What message, and a memory doth claim?
A star through drifting smoke of praise and blame -
The toilers' beacon, still to re-appear
With spring-tide hopes new quickening year by year
Since bright in Freedom's dawn the COMMUNE came.

Maligned, betrayed, short-lived to act and teach,
Whose blood lies still upon the hands that slew:
E'en now, when Labour knocks upon the gate
That shuts on Privilege, He thinks of you,
And what men dared and suffered, and their fate
Who ruled a City, once, for all and each.

Walter Crane
http://www.waltercrane.org.uk/