Song of the Working Girls
By Harriet Monroe
(American contemporary. Editor “Poetry.” In “Life and Labor.”13)
Sisters of the whirling wheel
Are we all day;
Builders of a house of steel
On Time’s highway,
Giving bravely, hour by hour,
All we have of youth and power.
Oh, lords of the house we rear,
Hear us, hear!
Green are the fields in May-time,
Grant us our love-time, play-time.
Short is the day and dear.
Fingers fly and engines boom
The livelong day,
Through far fields when roses bloom
The soft winds play.
Vast the work is—sound and true
Be the tower we build for you!
Oh, lords of the house we rear,
Hear us, hear!
Green are the fields in May-time,
Grant us our love-time, play-time.
Short is the day and dear.
Ours the future is—we face
The whole world’s needs.
In our hearts the coming race
For life’s joy pleads.
As you make us—slaves or free—
Oh, lords of the house we rear,
Hear us, hear!
Green are the fields in May-time,
Grant us our love-time, play-time.
Short is the day and dear.
Notes
13 Copyright by the “Poetry Publishing Co.”