The Builder's Song (1924)
Click, click, the song of the pick,
A bolt in the socket, a bar in the brick,
Lay well the foundation, a miniature hell,
A prison, perchance therein someday to dwell.
Click, click, the song of the pick,
The song of the trowel that severs the brick,
Raise up the huge mansion so proud to the sky
For you it's decreed in a hovel to die.
Click, click, die song of the pick,
A workhouse foundation solid and thick,
Worthy, perhaps, to work till its late,
A life's tragedy, a despotic state.
--J. NOLAN.
Notes
From the Sydney Newspaper the Workers' Weekly Fri 5 Dec 1924 p. 2.