Fair and square

By Daniel Browning

In 1856

‘Enlivened to a new agitation’

As Rosa Luxemburg described it

Stonemasons walked off the job

Downed their tools

The first industrial strik

The cacophonous atonal music of metal

Dragging on stone was

Silenced

And the dust allowed to settle

In a Gothic bastion

Where the ruling class incubate

The next generation

(the law faculty at the University of Melbourne)

The hands that made this artefact too

Downed tools

Or laundry

These spotted dukes or calloused lily whites

Animated by the one good fight

When we landed all our punches

Square