Classic Poem

Come gather, boys, together and we 'll gulp a cup to cheer us,
Tho' the night is slinking past, let us be blythe,
We have done our graft and stuck it, boys, though death was ever near us
All the way from Kinlochleven to Rosyth.
We have wrought in all the wide world's outside reaches,
And you 'll never find us chickens at our work;
We have clinched with toil and terror, and have mated woe and error—
'T was up to us, and, boys, we did n't shirk.

But 't was hell—pure hell—the while it lasted,
And cursèd little wages for the pain,
But 't was up to us to do it, and by Cripes we managed thro' it,
And to-morrow—it will be the same again.

Do you mind the nights we laboured, boys, together,
Spread-eagled at our travail on the joists;
With the pulley wheels a-turning and the naphtha lamps a-burning,
And the mortar crawling upward on the hoists,
While our hammers clanked like blazes on the facing
Where the trestles shook and staggered as we struck,
While the derricks on their pivots strained and broke the crank-wheel rivets
As the shattered jib sank heavy in the muck.

It was hell—pure hell—from start to finish,
And when it 's done, our labour will atone,
For all we did in strife and wrong the wild and erring life along—
Of us, who know the hell of it alone.

Do you mind the nights we fought, and drank and lusted
When the wild red blood was up and sense was gone,
There is much we can discuss about, and plenty too to curse about,
The brutal lusts that led forever on.
How we wooed the bright-eyed women of the gutter,
How we squared our many quarrels with our fists,
When 't was “Rush the blessed shack again,” and “Strike the beggar back again,”
And “If your man is clinching, break his wrists.”

But 't was hell—pure hell—the way we did it.
It was—“Up and burst your fellow if you can,”—
The maids we used to walk about, the things we used to talk about,
Are those which make a devil of a man.

So drink to what we 'll do, and what we 've finished,
We 'll spend the money wildly as we wrought;
Let pious people chatter, why to them it does n't matter
If we drop below the quarry face or not.
But they talk a little rot about our morals,
And rave a little cant about our shame,
But, boys, they do not know of it, the trebly cursèd woe of it,
'T is we who know, the players in the game.

And 't is hell—pure hell—and we have seen it,
Our comrades dropping wildly off the slips,
When outworks broke to fall apart, when landslides shoved the wall apart,
They died like men, with curses on their lips.

The lives that snapped in death, sure they 'll remind us
Of the sorrow striking fiercely to the core,
The endless toil before us, the nameless graves behind us,
Where our stricken comrades perished by the score.
These are the little facts that make us brutal,
The things that make us curse above our breath,
The furious fight infernal, that is ours to wage eternal—
The tragedy more horrible than death.

But it is n't in our power, my boys, to mend it,
So we 'll face it to the final with a curse;
But it 's hell—pure hell—until it 's ended.
And ended—well—it—can—be—nothing—worse.