As if to show me their sunny backs, "O, but to breathe the breath To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want "O, but for one short hour, No blessed leisure for love or hope, A little weeping would ease my heart; My tears must stop, for every drop With fingers weary and worn, Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich! She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" The following verse appears in the original MS. of the "Song of the Shirt." Seam, and gusset, and band, Like the engine that works by steam! THE LAY OF THE LABORER. SPADE! a rake! a hoe! A pickaxe, or a bill! A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, A flail, or what ye will, And here's a ready hand To ply the needful tool, And skilled enough, by lessons rough, To hedge, or dig the ditch, To lay the swath on the sultry field, The harvest stack to bind, The wheaten rick to thatch, And never fear in my pouch to find To a flaming barn or farm The fire I yearn to kindle and burn And not in the haggard's blaze! To Him who sends a drought To parch the fields forlorn, The rain to flood the meadows with mud, The bolt in its crooked path, To strike the miser's rick, and show A spade! a rake! a hoe! A pickaxe, or a bill! A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, A flail, or what ye will, The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash, The market-team to drive, Or mend the fence by the cover side, And leave the game alive. Ay, only give me work, And then you need not fear That I shall snare his worship's hare, Or kill his grace's deer ; Break into his lordship's house, To steal the plate so rich; Or leave the yeoman that had a purse Wherever Nature needs, Wherever Labor calls, No job I'll shirk of the hardest work, The pauper babe its breath, My only claim is this, With labor stiff and stark, My bacon, and drop of beer, But all from the hand that holds the land, And none from the overseer! No parish money, or loaf, No pauper badges for me, A son of the soil, by right of toil Entitled to my fee. No alms I ask, give me my task: The strength, the sinews of a man, |