Comrades

There’s a blacksmith works not far away,

He is brawny and strong and tall;

He’s at his forge when the shadows lift,

And he’s there till the shadows fall.

Just when I leave the land of dreams,

I can hear his hammer bang,

As he beats the red hot iron bar,

With a cling, clang, clang; cling, clang.

His smithy is dirty and dark enough,

And he is dirty and glum;

When a man is beating iron bars,

What can he be but dumb?

And there you may find him hard at work

If the weather be hot or cold;

He says, “There’s some satisfaction, Ma’am,

In beating iron to gold.”

Now, I am a mite of womankind,

I am neither tall nor strong;

I can only read, and dream, and think,

And put my thought into song.

But I smile at the mighty giant

Beating his iron so bold;

And think of a slender little pen

Turning my thought into gold.

I sit in my room so bright and warm,

And my tiny tool I lift,

“The battle is not unto the strong,

Nor the race unto the swift.”

But the hammer shall never cease to beat,

And the song shall never fail,

Be busy, O pen! And blacksmith brave,

Beat rivet, and shoe, and nail.

The world has need of us both I trow:

The giant so strong and tall

And the woman who only has a thought

They are comrades after all.

So, brother, be busy, I would hear

Thy hammering all day long;

The world is glad for the anvil’s ring,

And glad for the Singer’s song.