THE NAVVIES.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 31, 6 October 1911, Page 4

THE NAVVIES.

The builder-kin?s of the olden time Works mighty and wondrous did; They spake; on the peopled plain sublime, Rose the towering pyramid! Yes, proudly on high colossal things Looked the wondering ancient su'll; But mightier works than the olden kings Have our own stout navvies done! For the navvies, then, hurrah! Hurrah for the boys who've mightier things Wrought than were wrought by the builder-kings! Nature our land for the Celtic stock At first rude together threw; Our navvies wrought on the clay and rock And made up tho land anew! We saw them at work; sturdy and strong Wens they of the wild brigades; From one to the ether, with shout and

song, They tossed the hills son their spades. For the navvies, then, hurrah! Hurrah for the boys of the wild brigades Who tossed the hills on their sturdy spades!

Oh. Commerce then with exulting glee Saw the pathless mountain fall And the valley -rise—saw sea to sea Love-linked by the long canal! For water,, its burning thirst to slake, Gasped the restless, fevered town: Our navvies strode to the cloud-high lake And tumbled a river down! For the navvies, then, hurrah! Hurrah for the boys who tumbled down A river cool on the gasping town!

But wild was the work in the dim-il-lumed Hill-land and the sea-smoothed strath, Ere the locomotive, thund-er-wombed, Rushed forth on its iron path; Through riven hill se-e ths morning hurled, Revealing to wondering men The rocky crypts of a coffined world, Whose cairn is the mighty Ben. For the navvies, then, hurrah! Hurrah for the strong-thewed Titan men Who rent the heart of the granite Ben!

The sons of the future, awed, I ween, Will view the stupendous bridge, Wide-leaping a rivered vale From aerial ridge to ridge; They will say: "The giants here have 1"

They will says "Hero th© Titans v strayed!" And Titans they are, our nomads wild, The men of tho pick and spade! For the navvies, then, hurrah! Ye Isles, which they and the tempest made, Hurrah for the men of the pick and spade 1

Some one else had recognised the similarity between the above and "The Lords of Labor,*' or why were they pasted here in MacFarlan's book? My next thought was to find out who wrote them, and whether they were written before MacFarlan's poem. This, by mere chance, I was soon to know. I was spending an afternoon with a friend, in Bellshill, himself a "makkir," and in conversation the Pedlar-Poet was mentioned. I referred to the similarity between the two poems in question, and my friend stated-that one night MacFarlan had called on him and after supper the poet told him he had spent a night with Mr. James Boag, headmaster of the Airdrie Academy, and that the dominie had read him a song he had written, entitled "The Navvies," which he (MacFarlan) said, was very good, but might be bettered. Next morning my friend found MacFarlan had not been to bed, but had walked up and down all night, "in musing mood."" and the fruits of his musing were the verses entitled "The Lords of Labor."

But my space is full, and I have room only for two verses of the Ped-lar-Poet's "Hymn of Hope":—

Still old tyrants sit in purple, bloated with the blood of slaves, While in rags .our noblest spirits walk bare-footed to their graves: Death and vamoire Desolation riot in earth's fairest lands, With the giant limbs of. Freedom locked in hell-forged iron bands.

But despair not, faithful brothers, though your watch is dark and long, For the Morn is suirely coming with the Triumph and the Song: Taking heart from prophet Nature,- as she cries from height to height Of the Winter slain by Summer, and of Darkness chased by Light.