Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SONG OF THE SHOVEL, by PATRICK MACGILL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONG OF THE SHOVEL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Down on creation's muck-pile where the sinful / swelter and sweat
Last Line: When you'll rise o'er sword and sceptre a mighty power in the land.
Subject(s): Byzantine Empire; Death; Labor & Laborers; Labor Unions; Dead, The; Work; Workers


DOWN on creation's muck-pile where the sinful swelter and sweat,
Where the scum of the earth foregather, rough and untutored yet,
Where they swear in the six-foot spaces, or toil in the barrow squad,
The men of unshaven faces, the ranks of the very bad;
Where the brute is more than the human, the muscle more than the mind,
Where their gods are the loud-voiced gaffers, rugged, uncouth, unkind;
Where the rough of the road are roosting, where the failed and the fallen be,
There have we met in the ditchway, there have I plighted with thee,
The wage-slave troth of our union, and found thee true to my trust,
Stoic in loveless labour, companion when beggared and burst,
Wonderful navvy shovel, last of tools and the first.

Your grace is the grace of a woman, you're strong as the oak is strong;
Wonderful unto the navvy, the navvy who sings your song —
For ever patient, and ready to do what your master bids,
Though you laboured at Beni Hassan, and wrought at the Pyramids,
Uprearing the Grecian temple, the gold Byzantium dome,
The palaces proud of Susa, the legended walls of Rome,
In the earliest days of Egypt, in evil-starred Nineveh,
When your masters who be were whirling, inane in the Milky Way,
In Pompeii of the sorrows, ere the lava of hate was hurled
From the fiery mouth of the mountain, in the passionate days of the world.

Older than all tradition, older than Ops or Thor,
Gods of the Dane or Roman, gods of the plough or war,
In dark preadamite ages used by the primitive man,
And unto his needs were shapen ere custom and cant began —
A servant to Talos the Potter were you in the ages dim —
But you helped in the drift of seasons to fashion the urn for him.
But you're foul to the haughty woman, bediamonded slave of lust,
Who bows to a seignior's sabre, tinged with a coward's rust,
Foul to the aping dandy with the glittering finger rings,
You who have helped to fashion the charnel vault of the kings!
— Ah! the lady fair is disdainful and loathingly looks askew,
And the collared ass of the circle gazes in scorn at you,
But some day you'll scatter the clay on grinning lady and lord,
For yours is the cynical triumph over the sceptre and sword!

Emperors pass in an hour, empires pass in a day,
But you of the line and muckpile open the grave alway.

Tell me what are thy graces, what are the merits of thine?
Answer ye slaves of the railway, answer ye dupes of the mine.
What do you mean to the navvy, moleskinned serf of the ditch,
Piling the courts of pleasure up for the vampire rich?
What do you mean to the muck-men, forespent slaves of the street?
Life for the wives that love them, food for their babes to eat,
Who wear their fetters of being, down where no sunshine comes
In the Christian country of sorrows, the civilized land of slums.

Wonderful, ancient shovel, tool of the labour slave!
To you the sparkle of silver the hammer and furnace gave,
For you the virginal forest was stripped of its stateliest trees,
And you have the temper that flame has, and you have the graces of these.
Athens and Rome have known you, London and Paris know,
You'll raise the towns of the future when the towns of the present go —
A race will esteem and praise you in the days that are to be,
When I am silent and songless and the headstone crumbles on me!

Wonderful navvy shovel, the days are near at hand
When you'll rise o'er sword and sceptre a mighty power in the land.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net