The Wage-Slaves

 Oh, glorious are the guarded heights
 Where guardian souls abide--
Self-exiled from our gross delights--
 Above, beyond, outside:
An ampler arc their spirit swings--
 Commands a juster view--
We have their word for all these things,
 No doubt their words are true.

Yet we, the bond slaves of our day,
 Whom dirt and danger press--
Co-heirs of insolence, delay,
 And leagued unfaithfulness--
Such is our need must seek indeed
 And, having found, engage
The men who merely do the work
 For which they draw the wage.

From forge and farm and mine and bench,
 Deck, altar, outpost lone--
Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench,
 Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne--
Creation's cry goes up on high
 From age to cheated age:
"Send us the men who do the work
 "For which they draw the wage!"

Words cannot help nor wit achieve,
 Nor e'en the all-gifted fool,
Too weak to enter, bide, or leave
 The lists he cannot rule.
Beneath the sun we count on none
 Our evil to assuage,
Except the men that do the work
 For which they draw the wage.

When through the Gates of Stress and Strain
 Comes forth the vast Event--
The simple, sheer, sufficing, sane
 Result of labour spent--
They that have wrought the end unthought
 Be neither saint nor sage,
But only men who did the work
 For which they drew the wage.

Wherefore to these the Fates shall bend
 (And all old idle things )
Werefore on these shall Power attend
 Beyond the grip of kings:
Each in his place, by right, not grace,
 Shall rule his heritage--
The men who simply do the work
 For which they draw the wage.

Not such as scorn the loitering street,
 Or waste, to earth its praise,
Their noontide's unreturning heat
 About their morning ways;
But such as dower each mortgaged hour
 Alike with clean courage--
Even the men who do the work
 For which they draw the wage--
Men, like to Gods, that do the work
 For which they draw the wage--
Begin-continue-close that work
 For which they draw the wage!

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