Vol
ume o
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. V v ,lBkl,OX f&f
WEEK L Y J OUR N A L OF CHEER F U L CO M ME NT
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, . SEPTEMBER 1, 191 1
A SONG FOR LABOR DAY
BY WILL M. MAUPIN
7 have builded your towns and cities,
And over your widest streams
I have flung with a giant's ardor
The web of strong steel beams.'
I have carved out the1 busy highways '
That mark where your commerce
reigns; . '.'-
With hammer and forge and anvil
I have wrought your golden gains.
7 have girded the rock-ribbed moun
tains '
"With rails for the iron steed;
I have delved in the old earth's
:' - bosom ; - v- .. . , - :.
To answer the great world's greed.
I halve clothed you, housed you, fed ,
you, . ,
For thousands of years gone by;
I have stepped to the front when
.'. . duty ' ;-;'". . j ''".'v.'V. :;::"
Has called, and I've answered "I!"
I have wrung from the soil denied me
Your toll of the golden grains;
I have garbed you in silks and
satins
And fettered my limbs with
,t chains.
I have given my sweat and muscle
To build for you, stone on stone,
The palace of ease and pleasure
. The hut I may call my own.
For a thousand years you've driven
. A thousand years and a day.
O "
But I; like another Samson,
Am giving my muscles play.
My brain' is no longer idle;
I see with a clearer slight,. ,, , .
And piercing the gloom about me.
Fm seeing, -thank God, the light !
I see in the days before me " - '--X
My share of the . things' v I've-,
) . wrought; ,
See. Justice no longer blinded, '
The weights 'ofhef'scattsCuri
bought. t ; ; ' ''
I see in the not far' future ;; 5,
The day when the worker's , share
Is more than his belly's succor;
Is more than d rag to wear. '
f l! t
see on the morrow's mountains ''" .' J
The glints of a golden dawn; , . ,
The dawn of a day fast : coming ; v : r v .'
When strivings and tesje gq j
Lo, out of the vastly darkness -
That fetters my limbs like steel
I can hear the swelling chorus. . J H
That sings of the commonweal.
For a thousand years you've driven
For a thousand years and one. T,f
But I'm coming to take possession
- Of all that my hands have done. ;
And cities and towns and highways
I've builded shall be mine own; ,
And Labor, at last unfettered,
Shall sit on the kingly throne. .
Number 24
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