There's a song whose notes are forming in the hearts of all
mankind;
And the clamors of the hammers in the foundries and the
mills,
And furnaces reverberant that roar like rushing wind
While subduing for man's using the ore-treasures of the
hills,
Make the throbbing diapason for the song.
When the flasks are laid in rows upon the blackened foundry
floor,
And the ladles pour the hissing molten steel like golden
oil,
Then each workman thrills with caring for the others, friends
or foes,
While the lurid smoke is soaring,
And the trembling furnace roaring,
Dust and heat and grime ignoring,
There are eyes that light with kindness in the comradeship
of toil.
In the rooms wherein the looms make their endless clatter-clang,
And the whirling belts are flapping as the day goes
weary by,
'Mid the oil-smell and the litter, and the dinginess and
glooms,
Ere the heart is wholly broken
Often is the good word spoken,
And new courage is the token
That man's hope has ground eternal when the Christ in
man comes nigh.
