| |
1902
OH glorious are the guarded heights | |
| Where guardian souls abide— | |
| Self-exiled from our gross delights— | |
| Above, beyond, outside: | |
| An ampler arc their spirit swings— | 5 |
| Commands a juster view— | |
| We have their word for all these things, | |
| No doubt their words are true. | |
| |
| Yet we, the bondslaves of our day, | |
| Whom dirt and danger press— | 10 |
| Co-heirs of insolence, delay, | |
| And leagued unfaithfulness— | |
| Such is our need must seek indeed | |
| And, having found, engage | |
| The men who merely do the work | 15 |
| For which they draw the wage. | |
| |
| From forge and farm and mine and bench, | |
| Deck, altar, outpost lone— | |
| Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench, | |
| Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne— | 20 |
| Creation’s cry goes up on high | |
| From age to cheated age: | |
| “Send us the men who do the work | |
| “For which they draw the wage!” | |
| |
| Words cannot help nor wit achieve, | 25 |
| Nor e’en the all-gifted fool, | |
| Too weak to enter, bide, or leave | |
| The lists he cannot rule. | |
| Beneath the sun we count on none | |
| Our evil to assuage, | 30 |
| Except the men that do the work | |
| For which they draw the wage. | |
| |
| When through the Gates of Stress and Strain | |
| Comes forth the vast Event— | |
| The simple, sheer, sufficing, sane | 35 |
| Result of labour spent— | |
| They that have wrought the end unthought | |
| Be neither saint nor sage, | |
| But only men who did the work | |
| For which they drew the wage. | 40 |
| |
| Wherefore to these the Fates shall bend | |
| (And all old idle things—) | |
| Wherefore on these shall Power attend | |
| Beyond the grip of kings: | |
| Each in his place, by right, not grace, | 45 |
| Shall rule his heritage— | |
| The men who simply do the work | |
| For which they draw the wage. | |
| |
| Not such as scorn the loitering street, | |
| Or waste to earn its praise, | 50 |
| Their noontide’s unreturning heat | |
| About their morning ways; | |
| But such as dower each mortgaged hour | |
| Alike with clean courage— | |
| Even the men who do the work | 55 |
| For which they draw the wage— | |
| Men, like to Gods, that do the work | |
| For which they draw the wage— | |
| Begin—continue—close that work | |
| For which they draw the wage! | 60 |
| |
