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by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

1910
Language: English 
Suffragists:
Sounds of the battle raging around us, 
up and defy them laugh in their faces!

Friendly Men:
How they will knock you about, and yet as you say, 
this cause is worth a blow or two

Suffragists:
This cause that we love, 
this cause that we serve, is worth a blow or two

Friendly Men, Unfriendly Men:
Sounds of the battle raging. Hi! Stop them if you can, 
stop them, stop them, O stop them if you can.

Unfriendly Men:
Stop them, O stop them if you can

Suffragists:
This cause that we love, this cause that we serve, 
it shall prevail as prevails the light

Friendly Men, Unfriendly Men:
This cause that we serve, it shall prevail, is prevailing

Friendly Men:
Sounds of the battle raging around us, gently ladies, gently ladies. 
Why this violence?

Unfriendly Men:
Sounds of the battle raging around us, 
come move on please, come move on

Suffragists:
But the vow! 
We vowed to obey, we vowed to obey, honour, love

Anti-Suffragists:
What of the vow to obey! 
We vowed to obey, we vowed to obey honour, love

Friendly Men::
You vowed to obey us

Unfriendly Men:
You vowed to obey, you vowed to obey, 
I know Mrs Humphrey Ward. You vowed to obey…

All:
This cause that we love, 
this cause that we serve, is worth a blow or two

Friendly Men, Unfriendly Men:
Stopping the traffic, stopping the traffic

Suffragists:
Try again, try again, on to the goal!

Friendly Men/ Unfriendly Men:
They are putting back the cause, they are putting it back for years

Suffragists:
Patience, patience

Suffragists:
This cause we love will surely prevail as sure as sun doth rise!

Friendly Men, Unfriendly Men:
I fear they will get it, I fear they will get it

All:
We know we shall get it! We know we shall get it! 
Soon or later, surely, surely…

Suffragists:
We know we shall get it…

Men:
They will soon get it…

Suffragists:
The sounds of the battle raging around us, raging, raging, raging, raging…

Unfriendly Men:
Move on, move on, move on…

Suffragists:
We know we shall get it! Sounds of the battle raging around us

Suffragists: 
Nelly Bly, shuts her eye when she goes to sleep!

Anti-Suffragists, Friendly Men, Unfriendly Men:
But when she wakened

All:
Then she knew she would get it! 
When she wakened then she knew she would get it! … 
She has wakened up again and of course she will get it.

Quoted in ‘1910’: Ethel Smyth’s Unsung Suffrage Song, Hannah Millington, Dublin City University, 2021. A mini operetta inspired by the Black Friday suffrage demonstration, 18 November 1910. Lines of prose have been split at punctuatuion marks.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Ethel Mary Smyth, Dame (1858 - 1944), "1910", 1910 [ women's chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Iain Sneddon [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2024-05-02
Line count: 72
Word count: 413

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