The Workers

The Workers
by Walt Mason

Here's to the man who labors and does it with a song!
He stimulates his neighbors and helps the world along!
I like the men who do things, who hustle and achieve;
the men who saw and glue things, and spin and dig and weave.

Man earns his bread in sweat or in blood since Adam sinned;
and bales of hay are better than are your bales of wind.
Man groans beneath his burden, beneath the chain he wears;
and still the toiler's guerdon is worth the pain he bears.

For there's no satisfaction beneath the bending sky
like that the man of action enjoys when night is nigh.
To look back o'er the winding and dark and rocky road,
and know you bore your grinding and soul-fatiguing load—

As strong men ought to bear it, through all the stress and strife—
that's the reward of merit—that is the balm of life!
I like the men who do things, who plow and sow and reap,
who build and delve and hew things while dreamers are asleep.