I am the little Irish boy
   That lives in the shanty
I am four years old today
   And shall soon be one and twenty
   I shall grow up
   And be a great man
   And shovel all day
   As hard as I can.
   Down in the deep cut  Â
   Where the men lived
   Who made the Railroad.
For supper
   I have some potato
   And sometimes some bread
   And then if it’s cold
       I go right to bed.
   I lie on some straw
   Under my father’s coat
   My mother does not cry
   And my father does not scold
   For I am a little Irish Boy
   And I’m four years old.
Of noble minds and noble hearts
Old Ireland has goodly store;
But thou wert still the noblest son
That e'er the Isle of Erin bore.
A generous race, and strong to dare,
With hearts as true as purest gold,
With hands to soothe as well as strike,
As generous as they are bold,
This is the race thou lovedst so;
And knowing them, I can but know
The glory thy whole being felt
To think, to act, to be, the Celt!
Not Celt alone, America
Her arms about thee hath entwined;
The noblest traits of each grand race
In thee were happily combined.
As sweet of song as strong of speech,
Thy great heart beat in every line.
No narrow partisan wert thou;
The cause of all oppressed was thine!
The world is cruel still and cold,
But who can doubt thy life has told?
Though wrong and sorrow still are rife
Old Earth is better for thy life!
To toil all day and lie worn-out at night;
To rise for all the years to slave and sleep,
And breed new broods to do no other thing
In toiling, bearing, breeding - life is this
To myriad men, too base for man or brute.
To serve for common duty, while the brain
Is hot with high desire to be distinct;
To fill the sand-grain place among the stones
That build the social wall in million sameness,
To life by leave, and death by insignificance.
To live the morbid years, with dripping blood
Of sacrificial labor for a Thought;
To take the dearest hope and lay it down
Beneath the crushing wheels for love of Freedom;
To bear the sordid jeers of cant and trade,
And go on hewing for a far ideal,
This were a life worth giving to a cause,
If cause be found so worth a martyr life.
But highest life of man, nor work nor sacrifice,
But utter seeing of the things that be!
To pass amid the hurrying crowds, and watch
The hungry race for things of vulgar use;
To mark the growth of baser lines in men;
To note the bending to a servile rule;
To know the natural discord called disease
That rots like rust the blood and souls of men;
To test the wisdom's and philosophies by touch
Of that which is immutable, being clear,
The beam God opens to the poet's brain;
To see with eyes of pity laboring souls
Strive upward to the Freedom and the Truth,
And still be backward dragged by fear and ignorance;
To see the beauty of the world, and hear
The rising harmony of growth, whose shade
Of undertone is harmonized decay,
To know that love is life - that blood is one
And rushes to the union - that the heart
Is like a cup athirst for wine of love;
Who sees and feels this meaning utterly,
The wrong of law, the right of man, the natural truth,
Partaking not of selfish aims, withholding not
The word that strengthens and the hand that helps;
Who waits and sympathizes with the pettiest life,
And loves all things, and reaches up to God
With thanks and blessing - he alone is living.
Goddess of Liberty, listen! Listen. I say, and look
To the sounds and sights of sorrow this side of Sandy Hook!
Your eye is searching the distance, you are holding your torch too high
To see the slaves who are fettered, though close at your feet they lie.
And the cry of the suffering stranger has reached your ear and your breast,
But you do not heed the wail that comes from the haunts of your own oppressed.
Goddess of Liberty, follow, follow me where I lead;
Come down into sweat-shops and look on the work of greed!
Look on the faces of children, old before they were born!
Look on the haggard women of all sex graces shorn!
Look on the men—God, help us! if this is what it means
To be men in the land of freedom and live like mere machines!
Goddess of Liberty, answer! how can the slaves of Spain
Find freedom under your banner, while your own still wear the chain?
Loud is the screech of your eagle and boastful the voice of your drums,
But they do not silence the wail of despair that rises out of your slums.
What will you do with your conquests, and how shall your hosts be fed,
While your streets are filled with desperate throngs, crying for work or bread?
Aunt Chloe's Politics
Of course, I don’t know very much
About these politics,
But I think that some who run ‘em
Do mighty ugly tricks.
I’ve seen ‘em honey-fugle round,
And talk so awfully sweet,
That you’d think them full of kindness,
As an egg is full of meat.
Now I don’t believe in looking
Honest people in the face,
And saying when you’re doing wrong,
That “I haven’t sold my race.”
When we want to school our children,
If the money isn’t there,
Whether black or white folks have took it
The loss we all must share.
And this buying up each other
Is something worse than mean,
Though I thinks a heap of voting,
I go for voting clean.
" ... that here in this huge city, with its stores of heaped-up wealth, human creatures might be hunted down and destroyed ... The latter part of April Jurgis went to see the doctor, and was given a bandage to lace about his ankle, and told that might go back to work ...
[But there was no work for him.] The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw so plainly the meaning of it. In the beginning he had been fresh and strong, and he had gotten a job the first day; but now he was second-hand, a damaged article, so to speak, and they did not want him. They had got the best out of him--they had worn him out, with their speeding up and their carlessness, and now they had thrown him away! ....
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
God Save Our Noble Union
It came to us in darkness
It came to us through blood;
It shone out like the "Promise
Of God" upon the flood.
A Beacon--it has served us
With true, unerring flame,
And cast a blaze of glory
Upon our nation's name!
God save our noble Union!
'Twas left us by our fathers,
Those souls of priceless worth--
The noblest types of manhood
That ever walked the earth.
'Twas bought with fearful struggles,
By sacrifice sublime,
And stands a proud momento
For all the coming time--
God save the noble Union!
Our land a waste of nature,
Where beast and savage strayed;
Its wealth of lakes and rivers
Unlocked by keys of trade;
Then sunlike rose the Union--
A terror to our foes--
And lo! this "waste of nature"
Now "blossoms as the rose!"
God save our noble Union!
Where earth lay hid for ages
In deep primeval gloom,
Behold a boundless garden--
A continent in bloom!
With iron bands of railroads,
Electric tongues of wire,
And energies within us
Which time shall never tire--
God save the noble Union!
But now upon our heaven
Are signs of coming storms;
And dark unholy passions
Unfold their hideous forms.
The bravest hearts among us
Are filled with doubt and fear;
While sounds of horrid discord
Are grating on our ear--
God save the noble Union!
The hallowed flag that bore us
So proudly through the wars--
Is there a hand would sever
Its sisterhood of stars!
Great God! can we so blindly
Cast all Thy gifts away?
Or throbs there in this nation
One heart that will not pray--
God save our noble Union!
THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.
The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,
Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,
And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work
Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils
Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases
Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.