A Festive Song

Comrades, clasp hands,
the time demands
this night we spend enjoying
the jovial word
round festive board,
grim, carking care destroying.
Liquor this night
Shall sparkle bright,
with homage pay to Beauty
And brave men who
Oft conflict knew
Shall take a rest from duty.

Then fill the cup with liquor up
Pledge ev’ry man his neighbour
That in the light of Truth he’ll fight
To win the world for Labour

Comrades the tears
Our class thro’ years
Hath shed the wide world over
Have taken root
And soon the fruit
Our tyrants shall discover;
And when at length
We show our strength
And send each despot flying
With joy and mirth
Like ours, the Earth
Shall hail Oppression dying

Chorus

For who with zest
Can laugh the best
But he who laughs the longest
And in the fight
Twixt wrong and right
The laugh is with the strongest
Since Time began
Fate’s mighty plan
The laugh gave to the proudest
But History
Shall tell that we
Did laugh the last and loudest.

Chorus

Then, comrades, toast
Great Freedom’s host,
And loudly sing her praises
And honoured be,
O’er land and sea
Woe’er her banner raises,
So, ere we leave,
A wreath we’ll weave
Of flow’rs of Earth’s best gleaning
With Maid and Wife
With Hope of Life
Free from a tyrant’s scheming.