From "Third Hymn to Lenin"

For Muriel Rukeyser.
By Hugh MacDiarmid.

[...] Proclaiming in ghoulish kirks our base immortal hope.
And what is this impossible problem then?
Only to give a few thousand people enough to eat,
Decent houses and a fair income every week.
What? For nothing? Yes! Scotland can well afford it.

It cannot be done. The poor are always with us,
The Bible says. Would other countries agree?
Clearly we couldn't unless they did it too.
All the old arguments against ending Slavery!

Ah, no! These bourgeois hopes are not our aim.