Pansies (Lawrence)/Fight! O My Young Men—

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FIGHT! O MY YOUNG MEN———
Fight! don't you feel you're fadinginto slow death?Fight then, poor duffers degradingyour very breath. ​
Open your half-dead eyesyou half-alive young,look round and realisethe muck from which you've sprung.
The money-muck, you simple flowersof your forefathers' muck-heap;and the money-muck-worms, the extant powersthat have got you in keep.
Old money-worms, young money-wormsmoney-worm professorsspinning a glamour round money, and clergymenlifting a bank-book to bless us!
In the odour of lucrative sanctitystand they—and god, how they stink!Rise then, my young men, rise at them!Or if you can't rise, just think—
Think of the world that you're stifling in,think what a world it might be!Think of the rubbish you're trifling inwith enfeebled vitality!
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And then, if you amount to a hill o' beansstart in and bust it all;money, hypocrisy, greed, machinesthat have ground you so small.

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