O shapers of iron and stone,
O workers of metal and wood,
The world is built out of your bone,
Cemented and bricked with your blood.
O toilers and tillers of earth,
Creators and makers of wealth,
Your labour, though ceaseless, is worth
What barely suffices for health.
O weavers of warp and of weft,
O plyers of needle and thread,
You clothe all the rich, and are left
Half naked, half nurtured, half fed.
The miners deep down in the mine,
The sailors on tempest-swept sea,
The brutal shall touch the divine,
The shackled and fettered be free.
The false shall give way to the true,
When users of hammer and plane
And craftsmen of sinew and thew
As deftly make use of their brain.
--Ernest Jones.
Notes
From the Sydney Australian Newspaper The International Socialist 26 Jan 1918 p. 4.
If this song was composed by the famous Chartist leader Ernest Jones I have found no evidence of it in any of the Chartist anthologies.
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