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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HEARTS OF GOLD, by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE Poet's Biography First Line: Though poets have not yet sung you Alternate Author Name(s): Ogilvie, Will Henry | |||
Though poets have not yet sung you Nor writers your true worth told, I, who have wrought among you, I know you for Hearts of Gold! TOILING with shovel and dray, With reaper and harrow and drill , For the old folks wrinkled and gray In the old home under the hill; Brave, broad- shouldered, and brown, With the width of the world to roam , Staying to battle a mortgage down That a mother may keep her home Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! Toiling out on the blue-grass plains With plunging leaders and ringing chains; Working early and working late To the click of the dusty drafting-gate; Steadying hornies scared and wild: All for a mother, a wife , a child . Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! Out in the scorching, pitiless sun Under the reeling , rocking sky, With a comrade gasping, Mate , I'm done! Making the last two drinks in one Lest a good, true mate should die ·· Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! Bending your arms when the floods are down , Lest a neighbour's stock in the dark should drown; Sweating with green boughs , turn and turn , Lest a neighbour's crop in the night should burn; Riding the hills at the risk of life For a doctor's aid for a neighbour's wife Hearts of Gold! O , Hearts of Gold! Men who have ridden all day, Hungry and saddle-sore, Snatching a morsel and riding away Maybe for ten hours more, In the lined advance , That the range may give One more faint chance To a child to live Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! Women alone in the Bush, Mothers and wives, Keeping your guard in the weird night- hush Over the sleeping lives; In woe or weal Stanch and fond, True as steel To the marriage bond . Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! Fighting the fires and floods and drought In nights of terror and days of doubt, Shifting the outposts farther out Hearts of Gold! Facing your fate as the years go by With a hidden grief and a silent cry, Dying gamely as bull-dogs die . . Hearts of Gold! O, Hearts of Gold! By the trouble that never will tame you, By the toil that will never withhold, Whatever the dull world name you I know you for Hearts of Gold! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A WILDFLOWER BY THE WAY by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE ABANDONED SELECTIONS by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE CANADIANS by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE FROM THE GULF by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE HOW THE FIRE QUEEN CROSSED THE SWAMP by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE NORTHWARD TO THE SHEDS by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE QUEENSLANDERS by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE SOLITUDE by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE THE BLADES OF HARDEN by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE THE DEATH OF BEN HALL by WILLIAM HENRY OGILVIE |
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