Franklin P. Adams - A Psalm of Labouring Life lyrics

Tell me not, in doctored numbers, Life is but a name for work! For the labour that encumbers Me I wish that I could shirk. Life is phony! Life is rotten! And the wealthy have no soul; Why should you be picking cotton, Why should I be mining coal? Not employment and not sorrow Is my destined end or way; But to act that each tomorrow Finds me idler than today. Work is long, and plutes are lunching; Money is the thing I crave; But my heart continues punching Funeral time-clocks to the grave. In the world's uneven battle, In the swindle known as life, Be not like the stockyard's cattle-- Stick your partner with the knife! Trust no boss, however pleasant! Capital is but a curse! Strike,--strike in the living present! Fill, oh fill the bulging purse.! Lives of strikers all remind us We can make our lives a crime, And, departing, leave behind us Bills for double overtime. Charges that, perhaps another, Working for a stingy ten Bucks a day, some mining brother Seeing, shall walk out again. Let us, then, be up and striking, Discontent with all of it; Still undoing, still disliking, Learn to labour--and to quit.