I TELL you, kind sir, the heart grows sore
At working a lifetime for nothing more
Than to live;
As moulders constantly shovel the sand
That quickly runs out by a shade of the hand
Through the sieve.

'T is music to you when the anvil rings,
But labor for me when the hammer swings;
And the sweat
Rolls down on my cheek when the forge is hot;
For you have riches and I have not,
I regret.

From under the hammer there flies the spark,
While out of the window I hear the lark
As he sings
And soars away to the neighboring farms;—
It makes me wish that instead of these arms
I had wings.

But why are you rich and I left so poor?
I work at your forge till I'm black as a Moor
With the smut,
And muscles get hard as the hammered steel,
While life goes on like the lumbering wheel
In a rut.

My lungs are much like the bellows there:
Both puff at the forge with the self-same air,
Rise and fall;
But leather and lungs are the same to you,
And failing to work give way to the new,
That is all.

'T is work and worry to make ends meet:
The welding requires the whitest heat,
As you know;
For iron must sputter before it will join,
And wages is hardest money to coin,
Blow by blow.

If I fall sick it concerns not you;
This hammer must swing when there's work to do
In the shop;
With little of rest when the muscles tire,
Till hope goes out like the unfed fire
When I stop.

Perhaps, by and by, when accounts are made,
And all reckoned up, you might wish to trade:
Wealth will be
So hard to account for, and then, I ween,
The great balance beam will reverse between