An' the old winch coughs an' clatters every time the whistle blows. The crowded world' may call at times, but here I'd rather be.
With the strong men, the brown men, who work along with me;
With the good tan on their faces an' the clear look in their eyes
That come to men who ply their trade beneath the open skies:
The rough men.
The straight men.
With coarse words on the tongue,
An' hearts that work can never break an' minds that must keep young.
Oh, it's swingin', swingin' Douglas with a strength you glory in,
Where willin' hands are honoured hands, an' shirkin' is the sin—
An' it's: Hi, boys!
Clear, boys!
More to feed the mill!
An' the great tree whistles downward to a crash that shakes the hill.
1 ↑ Douglas— the Bushman's axe, so called after a famous maker.
A LONELY MAN
A Lonely Man
WHEN I'm out among the fellows, with the work to hold my mind.
Then there's heaps of joy in livin' an' the world seems awful kind—
Awful kind an' awful jolly, with no trace of melancholy.
An' I tell myself the bloke that don't enjoy it must be blind—
When I'm out among the fellows; but, when I am sittin' here,
Dreamin' by my lonely fireside, then the world gets kind of queer.
I suppose it's how you take it: what they call the point of view;
An' a man don't look for dreamin' when there's work for him to do.
But he can't be ever toilin', an' at times he gets to spoilin'
All the joy the day has brought him — when he lets the black thoughts through.
I suppose it's livin' lonely, as a fellow never should;
For a lonely man gets broodin', an' the broodin' isn't good.
It's never good, the sayin' is, for man to live alone.
But 'tain't because I like it that I'm batchin' on my own.
For a bloke must take what's goin', an' my life ain't all been growin'
Daffodils an' hummin' dance tunes just to give my soul a tone.
It's muscle that I've had to grow since days when I was small,
An' all the music that I've made is with the axe an' maul.
When folks are poor an' toil is hard an' times are harder still
A boy soon learns the use of time if he would eat his fill.
Long before I'd finished schoolin' I had put aside my foolin',
Till now, at thirty an' a bit, I'm workin' at a mill.
It isn't much; but then my folks knew that my chance was dim,
Or they might have named me Reginald instead of just plain Jim.
Just Jim the Hatter, Lonely Jim, the bloke that don't say much.
I've heard how people talk of me: the gossippers an' such.
An' they say I'm slow at givin'; but I've got my way of livin',
An' I've got my bit of farm-land an' a house that ain't a hutch.
An' tho' it hurts if this man sneers or that misunderstands,
I'm proud to know that all I've got was earned with my two hands.
Suppose I don't go gay at times an' throw around the cash:
It's knowin' want that frightened me from gettin' over rash.
I know I'm keen on savin'; but the pinchin' an' the slavin'
An' the starvin' in the old days keeps a man from bein' flash.
I never treated neighbours mean or grudged a mate a pound;
But I ain't out to buy loud cheers by flingin' it around.
An', after all—well, I don't know—it sums up much the same:
No matter how a man has lived, no matter what his aim—
If it's savin', if it's spendin'—all his life is just a blendin'
Of the gay days an' the grey days: an' he's got to play the game.
So where's the use of grumblin' if the game don't suit your bent?
I tells myself all this at night—an' yet I ain't content.
There's days that sometimes come to me when toilin's simple bliss,
An' every little job becomes a joy I wouldn't miss:
When the labour seems like playin', an' I catch myself a-sayin',
"Why, it's grand to think a man gets paid for doin' things like this!"
But, after, came the lonely night, when I've looked back an' said,
"To think I have to slave like that to earn a bit of bread!"
When I'm out among the fellows, oh, the world's a place to prize;
But here, beside my lonely fire, the glamour of it dies.
Sittin' here I take to gettin' gloomy views of things, an' frettin'
