And still Jurgis stuck it out! In spite of splitting headaches he would stagger down to the plant and take up his stand once more, and begin to shovel in the blinding clouds of dust. And so at the end of the week he was a fertilizer-man for life--he was able to eat again, and though his head never stopped aching, it ceased to be so bad that he could not work.
Over his face his gray hair drifting hides his Labor-glory in smoke, Strange through his breath the soot is sifting, his feet are buried in coal and coke. By night hands twisted and lurid in fires, by day hands blackened with grime and oil, He toils at the foundries and never tires, and ever and ever his lot is toil.
He speeds his soul till his body wrestles with terrible tonnage and terrible time, Out through the yards and over the trestles the flat-cars clank and the engines chime, His mills through windows seem eaten with fire, his high cranes travel, his ingots roll, And billet and wheel and whistle and wire shriek with the speeding up of his soul.
Lanterns with reds and greens a-glisten wave the way and the head-light glares, The back-bent laborers glance and listen and out through the night the tail-light flares-- Deep in the mills like a tipping cradle the huge converter turns on its wheel And sizzling spills in the ten-ton ladle a golden water of molten steel.
Yet screwed with toil his low face searches shadow-edged fires and whited pits, Gripping his levers his body lurches, grappling his irons he prods and hits, And deaf with the roll and clangor and rattle with its sharp escaping staccato of steam, And blind with flame and worn with battle, into his tonnage he turns his dream.
The world he has builded rises around us, our wonder-cities and weaving rails, Over his wires a marvel has found us, a glory rides in our wheeled mails, For the Earth grows small with strong Steel woven, and they come together who plotted apart-- But he who has wrought this thing in his oven knows only toil and the tired heart.
At that time there were thousands of navvies working at Kinlochleven waterworks. We spoke of waterworks, but only the contractors knew what the work was intended for. We did not know, and we did not care. We never asked questions concerning the ultimate issue of our labors, and we were not supposed to ask questions. If a man throws red muck over a wall today and throws it back again tomorrow, what the devil is it to him if he keeps throwing that same muck over the wall for the rest of his life, knowing not why nor wherefore, provided he gets paid sixpence an hour for his labor? There were so many tons of earth to be lifted and thrown somewhere else; we lifted them and threw them somewhere else; so many cubic yards of iron-hard rocks to be blasted and carried away; we blasted and carried them away, but never asked questions and never knew what results we were laboring to bring about. We turned the Highlands into a cinder-heap, and were as wise at the beginning as at the end of the task. Only when we completed the job, and returned to the town, did we learn from the newspapers that we had been employed on the construction of the biggest aluminium factory in the kingdom. All that we knew was that we had gutted whole mountains and hills in the operations....