May 1st: International Workers’ Solidarity Day

The Flag

By Pablo Neruda

Stand up with me.

No one would like

more than I to stay

on the pillow where your eyelids

try to shut out the world for me.

There too I would like

to let my blood sleep

surrounding your sweetness.

But stand up,

you, stand up,

but stand up with me

and let us go off together

to fight face to face

against the devil’s webs,

against the system that distributes hunger,

against organized misery.

Let’s go,

and you, my star, next to me,

newborn from my own clay,

you will have found the hidden spring

and in the midst of the fire you will be

next to me,

with your wild eyes,

raising my flag.

Music by The Last Internationale.