Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Labor Day/Genius and Labor
TRIBUTE TO GENIUS AND LABOR.
The camp has had its day of song;
The sword, the bayonet, the plume.
Have crowded out of rhyme too long
The plow, the anvil, and the loom.
O, not upon our tented fields
Are freedom’s heroes bred alone.
The training of the workshop yields
More heroes true than war has known!
Who drives the bolt, who shapes the steel,
May, with the heart as valiant smite,
As he who sees a foeman reel
In blood before his blow of might!
The skill that conquers space and time.
That graces life, that lightens toil.
May spring from courage more sublime
Than that which makes a realm its spoil.
Let Labor, then, look up and see
His craft no path of honor lacks;
The soldier’s rifle yet shall be
Less honored than the woodman’s ax.
Let art his own appointment prize.
Nor deem that gold or outward hight
Can compensate the worth that lies
In tastes that breed their own delight.
And may the time draw nearer still.
When men this sacred truth shall heed,
That, from the thought and from the will,
Must all that raises man proceed.
Though pride should hold our calling low.
For us shall duty make it good;
And we from truth to truth shall go.
Till life and death are understood.