Songs and Ballads for Manufacturers By The Rev. J. M. Neale |
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| IX. |
| X. |
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| XIII. |
 | Songs and Ballads for Manufacturers |  |
3
I. The Silk Throwsters.
1
A song for the Mulberry-tree so fair,And its leaves so fresh and gay;
And a song for the worm that feasteth there
In the pleasant month of May:
You may tell me of jewels with sparkling light,
You may tell me of pearls in braid,—
There never was king nor lady bright
Like that poor worm arrayed!
2
He buildeth him up a silken cellWherein to take his rest,
As yellow as furze on a mountain-fell,
And as soft as a robin's nest:
He creepeth in, when his task is done,
His quiet bed to make,
And he bids good night to the pleasant sun,
And we never let him wake!
3
There's the clatter of wheels, and the buzz of reels,And the layers that steadily go,
And the bobbins that catch the silk above,
From the swifts that fly below:
4
As we wind the silk amain;
To manage the lead, and to join the thread,
And to fill the emptied skein.
4
Now to the mill! Of wondrous skillOur English throwsters be;
Full thirty times their swifts whirl round,
While foreigners' turn but three:
The flyers hum on, and the spindles rise,
And never a wheel works wrong;
And the thread from the bobbins runs fast through the eyes,
And the twist comes close and strong.
5
Then gladly his work the throwster shifts;To the doubling the silk must go;
So now for the bobbins instead of the swifts,
By two and by three in a row:
'Tis rough to the touch, and 'tis foul to the view,
But the rails are soft and clean;
Our tram for the weft may fairly do,
But the warp must have organzine.
6
And are not we like the silk we throw?Each thread by itself is nought;
Through many a wheel it hath to go,
Before it comes out as it ought:
5
And a troublesome course to run,
To make us meet, in a Better Place,
To be woven together in one!
The layer is a light wooden rod, having wire-eyes fixed in it, one opposite to each bobbin, through which eyes the ends of the thread upon the reel are fixed when attached to the bobbin.
The bobbins are made of wood, and revolve about a hollow axis, so as to wind the thread from the swifts.
The swifts are a kind of wheels formed of four rods fixed at right angles through an axis; and on them the skein of silk about to be wound is placed.
A small weight of lead is attached to a looped wire which hangs upon the axis withinside the reel, because an uniform degree of tension is required for delivering the silk from the swifts upon the bobbins.
The flyer is a bent piece of wire, fixed upon the spindle of the throwsting mill, just above the bobbin, and containing two eyes, through which the thread from the bobbin passes.
The doubling machine is that by which two or three of the twisted silk threads are brought together in one bobbin.
Tram is made by twisting loosely together two or more threads of raw silk: organzine is of the nature of rope, where the combined strands are twisted in an opposite direction to that given to the separate threads, and is principally used for the warp, or length of the manufactured silk.
II. The Glassblowers.
1
Go, gather the sand at the ebb of the sea,And the ashes that fall from the charr'd forest-tree;
Can ashes and sand, vile and dark to the view,
Gain the clearness of light, and the softness of dew?
2
Go, kindle the furnace! The vents must be tight,And the blast must be fierce, and the heat must be white:
Through the heat and the blast must the crucible pass
From the coarseness of sand to the beauty of glass.
3
The time may be long, and the heat may be sore,But kindle the furnace one seventimes more;
The glow must be seen, and the heat must be felt,
Or how can the dross change its nature and melt?
4
From the face, as it rises, we skim off the gall,And the bubbles must burst, and the sandiver fall;
When the dross and the scum shall leave beauty and strength,
The work of the furnace is perfect at length.
5
And then we may lengthen or shorten or twist,And then we may form it and mould as we list:
Only touch it with caution, and handle with skill,
And the shapeless paraison is shaped to your will.
6
6
But brightness and clearness will never sufficeTo give to our vessels their beauty and price:
Quick hearts should be gentle,—join firmness with zeal;—
All lost is our labour, except we anneal.
7
And shall we not learn from the works of our hand,That the furnace is trial, and we are the sand;
As useless and earthly, as worthless and light,
As easy to scatter, as hard to unite?
8
That we cannot be fit for the change we must pass,Till the ashes of penitence mix with the mass;
That the fire of affliction must freely be pass'd,
If we hope to be moulded aright at the last?
Sandiver is the mass of metallic and earthy impurities which sinks to the bottom. But the gall is also sometimes called sandiver.
The paraison is the cylinder of glass accumulated on the end of the rod, and which is afterwards moulded to the required vessel.
By annealing, the glass vessel, which at first is so brittle as to fly to pieces on the smallest jar, is gradually cooled in a long oven, one end of which communicates with a furnace, the other being at a considerable distance from it; and is thus tempered and rendered fit for use.
III. The Figure-Weavers.
1
The bright wild-flowers! The sweet wild-flowers! 'Tis seldom we can see,Who dwell in these dark city streets, how beautiful they be:
But He, we know, Who bade them blow on mountain or in wood,
Appointeth us our place below;—and all He doth is good!
2
We seldom taste,—for us they waste,—the breath of their perfume;But all the brightness of their tints we borrow for the loom:
The fields and bowers must lose their flowers in Autumn's slow decay;
November is as good for ours as the sun and dew of May!
7
3
Firm hand we task, quick eye we ask, and patient heart as well;And many a wheel, and many a reel, beyond what I can tell:
Four rules our English workmen have, four golden laws they give,
And he must mind them, one and all, by weaving that would live.
4
Gently the treadle to the ground, or else the warp will crack;Softly the shuttle through the race, or else the shoot may slack;
Each time you bring the batten down, your force must be the same;
And he that sees the warp-threads go, and stops not, is to blame.
5
Long live the men of Coventry! His eyes are hard to please,Who will not own that, out and out, they beat the Lyonnese:
Our looms are just as fast as theirs,—our men as good as they;
Some say they match us in their flowers; and that we'll see to-day.
8
6
Here is the rose we'll try upon,—its leaves are white as milk;'Twill be no jot less fair, I wot, transplanted into silk:
Pass seven, take two; pass seven, take four; now turn the piece about;
Pass three, take five; pass eight, take six; our rose will soon be out.
7
Well! this I say; in such a day of murmurs and intrigues,Of Socialists and Chartists and Delegates and Leagues,
Let him who will turn Radical, and fling aside all rules;
When weavers do, their very looms may laugh and call them fools.
8
What! all be head, and none be tail! A pretty thing 'twould beIf e'er our tools should take the freak to do the same as we:
Fancy the yarn-roll setting up to get above the frame!
Fancy the treadles thinking scorn to work below the lame!
9
‘I'm far too good,’ the shuttle cries, ‘for that vile shuttle-race;’‘Just shift your feet,’ the treadle says, ‘to some more proper place;’
‘My end is dark,’ the cloth-beam growls; ‘I'll choose a better spot;’
‘And mine,’ remarks the shuttle-race, ‘is just as much too hot.’
9
10
‘Why, all the works must stop,’ you say: well, so they must—what then?Why may not looms turn Radicals as reasonably as men?
I'll work away both night and day before I'm one, that's flat:—
And now, sir, did you ever see a bonnier rose than that?
The treadles are the pieces of wood on which the weaver presses his foot in order to give motion to the loom. Young weavers are apt to do this too hard, and are thus likely, by the too sudden relaxation and tension, to break the threads of the warp.
The shuttle-race is the shelf or trough in which the shuttle runs backwards and forwards. If the latter be thrown too hard, its recoil will slacken the thread of the weft, shoot, or breadth, on the due tension of which much of the beauty of the piece depends.
The batten is the frame which is moved backwards and forwards to and from the cloth-beam, a piece of wood on which the manufactured silk is wound, to drive the shoot close together. This is performed with the left hand, and must be done uniformly; else there would be no uniformity in the thickness of the cloth.
If the shuttle is kept at work after any of the warp-threads are broken, the interlacing of these broken threads with the rest much impairs the texture of the article.
This is the manner in which flower designs are read on; the pattern is marked on a paper, divided (as in Berlin work) by intersecting lines into small squares; so many of these squares are passed, or left blank; so many taken, or occupied by the flower.
The lame, (as it is called in London, for a country weaver knows it by the name of heald, heddle or harness,) forms the communication by which the treadle acts on the loom.
IV. The Nailers.
[_]
[This Ballad only applies where the old method of hand manufacture is, as in many places, continued; and not where Clifford's, Willmore's, or Ledsam's Patents are employed.]
1
Home is home, however lowly,So our English proverbs say:
Men that leave their homes go slowly;
Men go fast the other way:
Ploughmen, handicraftsmen, sailors,
One and all must rove and roam;
We are happy, we the nailers,
For we sit and work at home!
2
Blow or freeze or snow or drizzle,We have little cause to heed;
Anvil, bellows, forge, and chisel,
These are all the arms we need.
Move the bellows! Soft and steady!
Nurse the furnace! give it strength!
When the iron bar is ready,
Off we chip the proper length.
3
Watch us while we touch the metal,When and how our blows are laid;
One too much or one too little
Shows a bungler in the trade:
One will chip, and two will flatten;
Four struck right, the head will cast;
He who works like this will fatten:
He who strikes at chance, must fast.
10
4
Where that nail may stand hereafter,What the scenes he has to see,
Joy or sorrow, tears or laughter,
Matters not to you or me:
We must make him, not for beauty,
But to serve for use and strength;
Fit him out to do his duty,
Head and point and shape and length!
5
So my young ones—go and view themYonder at the Parson's school—
Learn their parts, and how to do them,
And are made by line and rule:
Where their future lot may place them,
Neither he nor I can tell;
But we form them, and we brace them,
While we can, to meet it well!
V. The Tunbridge-Ware Manufacturers.
1
There is not, they say, a dumb thing but can teachA lesson as wisely as if it had speech;
So I'll sing you, my masters, a song, you that choose,
Of what you may learn from the woods that we use.
2
Let your courage be stout when the Truth you defend;Let its enemy break you before he can bend;
Stand firm to his bluster, stand fair to his stroke;
If he is the tempest, then you be the Oak!
3
You may conquer your foe,—when the quarrel's for pelf,—If you strive;—if you yield, you will conquer yourself:
Let them talk about spirit and pride as they please;
You copy the Willow that bends to the breeze!
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4
Keep make-bates at distance, drive tell-tales away,And banish the whisperer as far as you may;
Take your pattern from Chesnut, that, framed in a roof,
Drives worms from the place, and keeps spiders aloof!
5
Give aid to your neighbours, when aid they desire;Ask help from your neighbours, when help you require:
Give and take, take and give, throw away mine and thine,
And each shelter each, like a forest of Pine!
6
Never say, when your're asked to take business in hand,It is not my place, or, I don't understand:
If you're good but for one thing, your worth is but small;
Come, try to be useful, as Box is, for all!
7
There are many who stick by a prosperous friend,But forsake him the moment his wealth's at an end:
Be you like the Ivy, that clings to the wall,
And clasps it the closer, the liker to fall.
8
Never answer, lest surly and harsh you appear,A sigh with a smile, nor a laugh with a tear;
But copy the Ash, o'er the river-side bent,
That itself seems to weep to the water's lament.
9
Be as thankful, and just, and as honestly dealIn the winter of woe, as the summer of weal:
And yield better fruit, by the works that you do,
If you hope to be evermore green, like the Yew!
12
VI. The Cloth-Workers.
1
A pleasant time, in the month of May,Is the earliest Summer weather,
When the shepherds come, at the shearing day,
And drive their flocks together;
And the village is out in its gayest trim,
And the rams are led to the river's brim,
And are caught,
And are taught,
One by one, how to swim.
2
For England's sheepwalks are fair and wide;Her pastures her glory and pleasure;
Her wool is her staple, her flocks are her pride,
And the cloth that they yield is her treasure;
So firm in its texture, so fine in its form,
So ready for Christmas, so proof to the storm,
Made to wrap,
In its nap,
Hearts as sound and as warm!
3
We are not pent in the dingy roomOf a city-lane, as many;
Where the sun never shines, and the plants never bloom,
And air they scarce have any:
As we go to our work, as we stand in the mills,
We can look on the Gloucestershire valleys and hills,
Hear the breeze
On their trees,
See the foam of their rills!
4
In the mill, where we full the woven wool,The water is evermore pouring;
And the mallets fall, both one and all,
And the wheels are revolving and roaring:
13
We must stretch it with care on the tenter-frame;
And there
Give it air,
Or our work is to blame!
5
The fulling is done, and the felting comes next,That our stuff may be matted the tighter;
And then with the teazles the cloth must be vex'd,
That its gloss may be better and brighter:
When the dressing is over, the finish is near,
We have but to stretch out the piece, and to shear:
Well begun
Is half done,—
And our hands will be clear!
6
And we, in the troublesome world where we live,Have a teazling to suffer full often:
We must take it with patience, must give and forgive,
Its end is to smooth and to soften:
Ill looks and hard sayings are teazing enough,
But they brighten our looks, and they better our stuff,
And are friends
In their ends,
Though their friendship be rough!
The process of fulling consists in constantly exposing the cloth to the action of water, at the same time that it is stamped and beaten by mallets, in order that its impurities may be removed.
The tenter-frame is made by a number of upright posts, fixed in the open air, with continuous horizontal rails, on which the cloth is stretched.
In milling or felting, the cloth is spread over with soap and again fulled: by this operation the fibres of the wool are more closely matted and mixed together.
This nap, which covers the cloth like a loose fur, is then-shorn off: this is the operation of shearing or cropping, which is the last process.
VII. The Cotton-Spinners.
1
A song for the plant that brings money and fame,Gave Ashton its being, and Preston its name;
Whose ships fill the Mersey each flow of its tide,—
That is Manchester's riches, and Liverpool's pride.
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2
It peoples the waste, it encloses the fen,'Tis the joy and the wealth of the Lancashire men;
It gives us our meat, and it makes us our dress,—
So a song for the Cotton! We cannot do less!
3
Away to the batting! But softly and fair!The fanners must fan, while the scutchers must tear;
Just as mobs hew away at the things that they hate,
When they get up a riot in spite of the State.
4
But he who expects that his stuff can be clean,Except it shall pass through the carding machine,
May as well look for Radicals free from complaints,
Or for goodness and virtue in Latter Day Saints!
5
Then, in drawing, the slivers we endlessly ply,As they run, and run on, and for ever run by:
Like the Chartist who gabbles with might and with main,
And gives you the same thing again and again.
6
And in roving, we twist to the best of our skill,Like a Socialist twisting the truth to his will:
Though he works by his fancy, and we go by rules,
Yet both his twists and our twists are fit but for mules!
Batting is the operation by which the cotton is opened and cleaned; it is now generally performed by a kind of threshing machine.
Scutchers are a kind of revolving teeth, which tear open the cotton; fanners blow away the dust and seeds.
In drawing, the slivers or lengths of cotton are elongated; the thread is also equalized, and made of more uniform strength.
Roving reduces the sliver into a finer sliver, or roving; at the same time giving it a twist to make it like a coarse yarn.
Mule, or mule-jenny, is the machine for stretching, as well as spinning the thread, when received from the roving bobbins.
VIII. The Iron-Founders.
1
'Tis a fearful sight, on a Winter's night,When the wind on the moors is high,
And here and there the furnace-glare,
Is ruddy across the sky:
15
A sheet of flame is cast;
And far below is the livid glow
Of the iron melting fast.
2
A weary watch, while others sleep,A weary watch have we;
When the frost is sharp, and the night is deep,
And as lone as lone can be:
And the blast, that nothing can weary, roars
To the wind that roars again;
You might keep alive, with the air it pours,
Two hundred thousand men!
3
And hour by hour, as the distant strokeOf the old church-clock we hear,
We feed the furnace with lime and coke,
Whereon he makes good cheer:
And hour by hour, in his red, red sides,
He melts the ore away;
And the liquid stream of metal glides
From the hearth to its bed of clay.
4
And this is the way that our hours decay,And these are the toils that wear;
For our children's sake our rest we break
From youth to the hoary hair:
The very iron we fashion out,
Of turmoil tells its tale;
The cannon that roars in the battle-shout,
The anchor and the rail.
5
We murmur not that the words were saidTo all of mortal frame,
In the sweat of our brow we must needs eat bread,
Till we turn from whence we came:
But when clouds fly off, and tempests cease,
And skies are calm and clear,
We cannot but long for the Land of Peace,
And the quiet we know not here!
16
IX. The Miners.
1
A hundred fathoms, one and all, below the earth we dwell,We never know the daylight's glow, that others love so well:
The ploughman sees the hills and trees, that we can never view;
The very sun that shines on him, on the queen is shining too.
2
By hard attacks, by flame and axe, we blast and hew our way;In darkness dim, through caverns grim, we toil from day to day;
The engine roars, the water pours, the pinions creak and strain;
The buckets rise with fresh supplies, and still we work the vein.
3
The toil we share, the very air whereof we take our breath,The rocks we hew, the things we view, they all are full of death:
And still we say, as day by day we pass the fiery damp,
His name be blest, and light his rest, that made the Safety Lamp.
4
A man thinks light of wrong or right, that never sees the sun;And in the place where darkness dwells, are deeds of darkness done;
The evil jest, the hardened breast,—we know them both,—and worse,
The heart that cares for nothing, and the blasphemy and curse.
17
5
Ay! time seems long in passing!—But time will pass away;Each thing we thought, each deed we wrought, will have its reckoning-day:
The deeds we did in secret shall be shown in all men's sight,
The words we spoke in darkness shall be published in the light!
6
For He, Who bade the husbandman to plough and sow and reap,Hath His eyes upon the miner in the lode so dark and deep:
Let us trust in Him at all times,—let us only do His will,
And He, Who heard our cry of late, can guide and guard us still.
7
God bless the man to whom we owe the thanks of all our lives;For saving from their bondage our children and our wives:
God bless the man that dared alone the miners' cause to plead;
That bravely came to end our shame, and help us in our need!
X. The Blacksmith.
1
They tell me that the times are bad,And every day grow worse, sir,
They say that tithes will drive us mad,
And taxes are a curse, sir:
There's Dick the cobbler takes in hand
To mend the constitution;
And Tom the bricklayer calls it grand
To talk of revolution.
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2
Last evening I was wearied outWith righting up a waggon,
While Tom and Dick, and all their rout,
Were tippling at the Dragon:
And by the time their cups were drained,
And they in talk were deep, sir,
My weariness was so unfeigned,
I fairly fell asleep, sir!
3
Well, though I slept, I seemed to seeThe things that were around me;
'Twas very strange, as strange could be,
It did not more astound me;
For, like some Radicals I know,
When talking of the nation,
My tools were seated in a row,
And holding consultation.
4
The bellows first got up to stateAt length his own defence, sir:
All wind, like Chartists when they prate,
And not a word of sense, sir:
‘'Tis very well,’ quoth he, ‘for you
To sit all day at ease, sirs,
With nothing in the world to do
But just yourselves to please, sirs:
5
‘I might be vastly well contentTo set our works a-going;
But all day long my time is spent
In puffing and in blowing:
The long and short of what I mean
Is this,—come what come may, sirs,
I'll be no more the drudge I've been,
Nor slave another day, sirs!’
6
‘Well,’ quoth the anvil, ‘this I say,—It seems a little hard, sirs,
My worthy friend, with that child's play,
Should win on your regard, sirs:
19
When by the handle pump'd, sirs;
I'll stand no more, I'd have you know,
The always being thump'd, sirs!
7
‘Pooh, pooh!’—the iron cried,—‘why whatIf you were in my place, sir;
Heated from morn till night red hot,
Without an hour of grace, sir?’
‘Well,’ said the pincers,—‘come to that,
My case is much the same, sir,
Who have to make you round or flat,
Or pull you from the flame, sir!’
8
Said I, ‘This talk is vastly fine,And makes me seem a Turk, sirs;
But if you strike, I can't divine
How I'm to do my work, sirs:
You think, it seems, to make me vex'd
By sitting still as logs, sirs;
But mark the thing that follows next,—
Your going to the dogs, sirs!
9
‘If all must labour who would live,No use to sigh and groan, sirs;
The best advice that I can give
Is this,—Let well alone, sirs:
Some have been head, and some been tail,
These thousand years, as now, sirs;
You want to alter all you ail;—
The thing is, when and how, sirs?’
XI. The Paper Makers.
1
You may tell me of furnaces blazing and bright,Of engines that thunder from morning till night;
But show me the craftsman, whoe'er he may be,
That works, in his calling, such wonders as we?
20
2
'Tis we that bring riches, 'tis we that bring fame,Give the banker his notes, and the author his name;
Provide for the future, past ages recall,
Make books for the learned, and letters for all!
3
But who that beheld us receiving the stuff,So foul and so tattered, so worn and so rough,
Could think of the changes our magic can teach,
When we sort, and we dust, and we boil, and we bleach?
4
The dark we make white, and the foul we make clean,And the rags of the beggar we fit for the Queen;
And the pulp must be taught, ere we work it, to flow
As soft as sea-foam and as pure as the snow.
5
From the vat to the cistern, from thence to the wire,That the pulp may grow firm, and the water retire;
And still, as it moves in continuous length,
It loses in weight, and increases in strength:
6
Then o'er the first roller, to dry and to drain,Then over the second, and under again:
That the damp of the vat it may learn to forget,
It must roll o'er the hot metal cylinder yet:
7
Thence passing still onwards, its toil it completes,Shaped out by the cutting machine into sheets:
Forthwith we can sort it, as best may beseem,
For the warehouse or shop, in the quire or the ream.
8
We may learn, (who sit watching from morning to night,How foul are our rags, and our paper how white,)
When we meet with an evil how inbred soe'er,
To try and improve it, and never despair!
21
XII. The Engine Drivers.
1
Water and flame to agreement came,And a solemn league they swore,
To work such speed and to do such deed
As never was done before;
To be friends to Time, to be foes to space,
To mingle their rival powers,
And at giants' pace, in a giant's race,
To be slaves to us and ours.
2
The sign is made, the word is said,And the boiler coughs and hoots,
And taught to go at the first right slow,
The long line onward shoots;
Till with valves that rattle quick, and with steam that volumes thick,
And with buffers each from other far apart,
While the sleepers quake below, and the wheels like lightning go,
Through the tunnel and the bridge we dart.
3
Through the chalk-built hill, by the busy mill,By the stream where the waters splash,
Through the Kentish hops, through the Sussex copse,
O'er the breezy heath we dash:
Where the small birds sing, where the sweet bells ring,
Where the earliest flowers are plucked,
We thunder away the livelong day
O'er embankment and viaduct.
4
There's a hill before, yet we give not o'er,But with double speed we fly,
And we make no pause at the tunnel's jaws,
Though we enter with doleful cry:
Both the darkness and rocks our engine mocks,
And mountains are tamed by skill;
Though they fought right hard for their own at Box,
And harder at Clayton Hill.
22
5
The hour will be past if we pause at last,So faster, if faster may be;
The clouds that fly through the summer sky
Are not so swift as we;
There's a whir in the trees when we pass like the breeze,
As if all we had done were too slow,
And for breath we must gasp, and the tender-rails we clasp,
As a mile in a minute we go.
6
We may hear the bell of our coming tellA long long league away;
And the pleasant field to the town must yield,
Ere we end our toil to-day;
For life and for limb one thought to Him
Of thankfulness we give,
Who guides us aright, in our whirlwind flight,
When we could not go wrong and live!
XIII. The Manufacturer's Day.
1
They tell us that labour, how urgent soe'er,By provender never was hindered, or prayer;
Most think of the first, ere in business they mix,—
Let us think of the last, too, ere bell rings at Six.
2
The west may be dark, but there's light in the east,For there still is some comfort for those that have least;
Though the days be at shortest, and cloudy the heaven,
The morn will begin to be breaking by Seven.
3
Take time by the forelock, say proverbs of old,That deserve to be written in letters of gold;
The sluggard is always behindhand and late,—
We would fain break the neck of our business by Eight.
23
4
Safe bind and safe find, is an excellent key,And order the best of all locks that can be;
Without it a mill is a place fit for swine;
And what are the men?—Hark! the clock has told Nine!
5
The great bell is going—it biddeth to prayer;The church-doors are oped, but we cannot be there:
Yet the time has been once and it will be again,
When the men from the mill hastened thither at Ten!
6
The morning is wearing;—we work as we may!The harder we labour, the better our pay:
We think of the Saturday night that is near,
Yet the stroke of Eleven we joyfully hear:
7
For though we toil on without pause or complaint,Yet fingers will weary, and hearts will grow faint:
And there never was workman that rested too soon,
Or failed to be thankful because it was Noon.
8
Then gaily we hasten through alley and street,To the dinner so ready, the cottage so neat;
And with toil and with task we are glad to have done,
In the home of our wife and our children, till One.
9
The hour that comes next is the worst that we know,The toil seems so hard and the clock seems so slow:
When the sun is so bright, and the sky is so blue;
Who would not much rather be idle at Two?
10
But come, when unpleasant the thing or the place,Then keep a good spirit, and show a good face!
Let your fingers move nimbly, as nimbly can be,
And you'll start with surprise when you hear it strike Three.
11
We learn to be thankful, when weak or distrest,For the House that brings peace and the Day that brings rest:
Who thinks of it oft'ner? who longs for it more?
Who welcomes it gladlier?—Hark! there is Four!
24
12
All the things that we see, all the things that we know,Are earthly, of earth, and they bind us below;
'Tis hard to look upward and harder to strive;—
Now only one hour! for the Minster tells Five!
13
But they that are thankful, and faithful, and true,May look to the end and the things that ensue,
As calmly and gladly as we, at this time,
Wait for leave to go home at the Six o'clock chime!
| Songs and Ballads for Manufacturers | |