playing his heavy hammer careless of dust and dirt ;
From the first pale silver of early dawn--no part of the day he shirks--
Till the sun sinks down in a flare of gold, the Italian mason works.) Chip, chip. He works for England now, good gold the English pay
For work well known, and work well done, and work done all the day;
They reck no price for road or rail, no weight in cost they feel,
That hoop the staves of Empire with double hoops of steel. Chip, chip. The pillared cuttings, the dusty banks are made,
And, coming from the Southward, the heavy lines are laid.
E'en now the nosing rail-head creeps past and down the ridge
To take the deviation that waits the finished bridge. Chip, chip. The mottled granite rings crisp and hard and keen;
Too long it slept, too long it kept the place where it had been
(Back of a lone and shaggy kops where fig and buckhorn grow),
And took no place in the reckless pace that the reckless White Men go. Chip, chip. The block is finish'd, with symmetry, size, and face,
And the mason sees his handiwork pass to its destined place;
The singing Sennas sling the block,--his work on it is done ...
And he turns his thought and hammer to new and unshaped stone. --Kingsley Fairbrldge, in "Veld Verse." Notes From the Queensland Newspaper The Queenslander 6 Jul 1933 p. 2.