BRAIN WORK AND HAND WORK.
Reading edition
———
BY CHARLES STREET.
———
In a garret cold and dreary
Sat a laborer deep in thought,
And his brow looked worn and weary.
As though hardly he had wrought;
And I watched his throbbing brain,
Like a wild bird to be free,
Struggling to fly back again
To its cageless liberty—
And the muscles and the fibres,
And the flesh upon the bone,
Like a mass of burning embers
Self-consumingly they shone.
And I turned my vision backward
To the scenes of other days,
While the sword within the scabbard
Of the mind yet feebly lays;
Ere the boy, grown into manhood,
Felt the cravings of his soul,
Ere keen hunger shivering stood
On his threshold crying fool!
For the midnight oil he’d wasted
Scanning books o’er page by page,
For neglect of luxuries tasted
In this money-making age.
And I saw an infant sleeping,
Softly pillowed by the side
Of a widowed mother weeping,
Fearing death might take its guide,
And to stranger hands and cold
Leave the darling of her heart;
To the swearer—to the scold—
’Mid the rocks without a chart—
God of mercy! help the helpless,
Teach them how to earn their bread;
Oh to trust alone—’tis madness—
To the labor of the head.
By the willing arm that fails not,
By the workings of the hand,
In this free and hallowed spot,
In this great and mighty land,
Where before us rivers deep,
Forests wide and mountains high,
Where, beneath the rocky steep,
Treasures all exhaustless lie,
By a will of stern resolve,
Making all things own his sway,
Man may thus the mystery solve
How to live—while live he may.
Not to fling away existence,
Toiling early—toiling late—
Not to succumb for subsistence,
Calling penury your fate.
Brain alone will not support thee—
Trace the history of the past—
Study well and study deeply,
You will find the truth at last.
Brain and Hand and Hand and Brain,
Let each urge the other on,
And—the dollars shall again
Reward thee when thy work is done.