Drift! Drift! Drift!From the early morn till night.Drift! Drift! Drift!From twilight till broad-day light,With pick, and crow-bar and sledge,Breaking a hard gravel face;In slum, and water and mud,Working with face-board and brace;Main set, false set, and main set--Repeated, shift after shift--Day after day the same song--The same wearisome Song of the Drift.
Run! Run! Run!Rush to the shaft the rich pay!Backward and forward in haste--Watching the track by the way--Run! Run! Run!In a kind of nervous dread,Fearing that "cap" that oft makesA batt'ring ram of your head;This "curve,"--that badly built "switch,"Look out! you know what they are.Run! Run! thro' all the long day,Sings this hasty Song of the Car.
Hoist! Hoist! Hoist!No music there is in that sound!Hoist! hoist! HOIST!--Impatient voice underground!You may wish your arm a crankAttached to a water wheel!With no acking bones at night,Nor a weary frame to feel--Tis vain! Hoist! Hoist away! Hoist!--The dirt comes heavy and moist,And thirty buckets an hour"Foot" to the tune of Hoist! Hoist!
Wash! Wash! Wash!And rattle the rocks around,Is the song the Dump-box sings,So cheery the whole week round;And on Sunday "clean me up,"And gather the precious "pay.""Better the day--better the deed,"Should read, better the deed--the day!Now say, what have you "wash'd up?"Small wages--well, never repine--You know, we'll do better next week!And so ended the Song of the Mine.
