A factory girl with smudges on her cheek And strong hands hardened with her daily toil Where furnaces flare forth and caldrons boil With white hot metal, and the steel shears shriek; This is no sheltered maiden, soft and meek, But one who dares the labor and the moil To change the ore and coal ripped from the soil Into the tools of progress that men seek. Yet she has softer hours when, silken clad, She seeks the lights and laughs the night away, Wasting her wages like a spendthrift glad, Avid of pleasure and of love and play; But though her beauty glows at such a time She cannot wholly free her hands of grime. |