ANOTHER SONG OF THE STAMPS.

There’s another and brighter song to sing That is caught on the writer’s quill, Though ’tis told all day with a rhythmic swing By the stamps of the ten-head mill: They repeat no burden of cankered greed, And they echo no anguished moan, When they rattle the roofs With their iron hoofs, As they pound on your two-ounce stone! There’s never a beat for the filching crew, Not a chip from the workman’s crust; There’s never a turn for the London Jew, Nor a “weight” for the London “trust”; There’s never a sigh for the wretched gnomes Below in the seething stope, And the walls resound, As the cams go round, With the clamour of new-born Hope! There’s a battler seeing the parcel through; And he stands in the lamplight dim, And he bends his ear to the voice anew For the message that comes to him: And his bronzed cheek glows as the words grow clear. For they quicken his pulse and thrill, And memories stir To the whizz and whir Of the wheels of the ten-head mill. There’s a king to-night in his dungarees, And he’s quaffing an old, old wine— Oh, he doffs no cap and he bends no knees To the boss of the Bull-owned mine! And he gives no thought to the fruitless quest Where his years and his toil were cast, While the stampers sing The awakening Of his Luck—that has come at last! So the sky grows clear and the world grows wide, And there’s melody in the air: There’s a waiting ship for the Eastern side, And a woman that’s waiting there: There’s a proud disdain for the things that were, And this planet is all his own— And there’s good red blood In the stamper’s thud As it pounds on his two-ounce stone!