HE’S idle, unsteady, and everyone’s ready to throw him a dornick or give
him a biff; he’s always in tatters, but little it matters; he’s evermore
happy, so what is the diff? He carries no sorrow, no care for tomorrow,
his roof is the heavens, his couch is the soil; no sighing or weeping
breaks in on his sleeping, no bell in the morning shall call him to
toil. As free as the breezes he goes where he pleases, no rude overseer
to boss him around; his joys do not wither, he goes yon and hither, till
dead in a haystack or ditch he is found. The joys of such freedom—no
sane man can need ’em! Far better to toil for the kids and the wife,
till muscles are aching and collarbone breaking, than selfishly follow
the vagabond life. One laborer toiling is worth the whole boiling of
idlers and tramps of whatever degree; and though we all know it we don’t
find a poet embalming the fact as embalmed it should be. The poets will
chortle about the blithe mortal who wanders the highways and sleeps in
the hay, but who sings the toiler, the sweat-spangled moiler, who raises
ten kids on a dollar a day?
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