Gallopin' Out

A Poem by L.J. Villiers

Gallopin' Out, gallopin' out
With mates whose game is toil,
An' make it warm while work'd about,
An' sweat's the shoveller's oil;
That wait to hear, an' want to tell
A yarn when yakker's beat
An' handle pick an' pewter well,–
That job's the best you'll meet.

A way she sails along the rails
By cuttin', bank an' bridge;
Each mouth inhales the whiff of gales
From hollow, rise an' ridge;
There's work to do before we're through
Each truck will see a race–
There's mighty strains between the trains–
A blockage brings disgrace !

Gallopin' out, gallopin' out,
The day has left the dark,
The gang is' bustlin' in a rout
To make the mornin' start!
Our engine-driver comes to say
The trucks we overfill,
'She'll blow her bloomin' tubes away,
A-climbin' Flinty Hill.

Gallopin' out, gallopin' out,
This game of life is that !
Today renews a willin' bout
Where yesterday's lies flat.
Our shovels make the ballast pour,
Secure to hold the track,
That wheels may grilled and engines roar,
But ne'er the road shall crack.

For sweat is sweet, if in its beat;
It brings the worth we make,
So lure's to Toil, where men must moil
That strength may never shake!
Oh, speed the wheels as vigor reels
Through miles of plain and hill,
Where trucks are led away ahead,
And wealth crowns might and will.

Notes

From The Changing Year (A Sonnet Cycle) And Other Verses by L.J. Villiers, 1918, p 10.

More about Villiers' sonnet cycle

see also February in this collection.

War on the Workers: Preface