A Song of Workers
A Song of Workers
Original Text
Robert Norwood, The Piper and the Reed (New York:
George H. Doran, 1917): 66. Internet Archive
2The builders of houses!
4Laying pipes for pure water!
5Hail to the miners
6Prisoned in pits,
7Cleaving the coal,
8Dauntless of death from the gases!
9Here's to you, sailors,
10Brave on the boisterous
11Breast of the ocean,
12Tanned by the sun and the tempest!
13Here's to you, trainmen--
15All you conductors--
16You with your hand on the throttle!
17Gloria! Doctors,
18Nurses and mothers,
19Teachers of children,
20Patient with feet that are plodding;
21Gloria! Students,
22Lovers of nature,
23And you scientists--
Notes
1] hodmen: bricklayer's assistants, carrying the hod or container with mortar or bricks. Back to Line
3] navvies: canal or road construction workers. Back to Line
14] Couplers: workers who couple or detach railway carriages. stokers: railway workers who feed coal into the locomotive furnace. Back to Line
24] Shekinahs: visible manifestations of God. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1917
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form