Lyr Add: An Anvil Song

Subject: Lyr Add: An Anvil Song
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 04:46 PM

by John MacLennan

This song appeared in a compilation of John MacLennan's work published here in 1907.

An Anvil Song
(Concerning the steam hammer in the Addington works)

It stands all grim In the smithy dim,
In feats of labour skilled,
With its arm at rest, On its anvil breast,
And its cylinder lungs unfilled.
With its feast of scrap, On the big heap's lap,
Or piled by the furnace door,
In a frame of wood;
And its big tongs, slewed
By the crane, on the iron floor.

A giant, there, In the smoky air
It rests, till the watchman comes,
To poke and drag, At the bars and slag
Till the smelting furnace hums,
And the forge is manned, And the forgers stand,
A pale, but a jovial throng,
In singlets light,
Who straight unite In waking the Anvil Song.

Their arms are stripped, And the scrap is gripped
In the tongs, and the furnace glares
In the forgeman's face, As he finds a place
In the heat for his giant wares ;
Then the big doors meet, On the glaring heat,
And greedy fires are fed,
Till the scrap comes out,
With a forger's shout, And drips by the anvil bed.

The blows are light, Of the piston bright,
On the dazzling pile agape,
Its tap! tap! tap! Till the molten scrap
On the anvil breast takes shape.
The forger knows, His work, and the blows
Increase with stupendous roar,
Till at last they crash
With mighty dash, And bed in the cooling ore.

There are men in the light, And men in the height,
Controlling the noisy steam;
But clear in the blaze, Or dim in the haze,
They people a clamorous dream:
And every ghost In the dream has a post,
And a voice in the weird refrain,
And silence falls, On a scene that calls
For the molten slabs again.

For the song that's dear To the forger's ear
Is heard when the fires are white,
And the heat comes out With a surge and a shout,
And the cylinder proves its might.
Tis a song profound, Whose theme is bound
In massive chords, and strong,
And glittering sparks From the piston marks
The bars of the Anvil Song.

I have had a go at setting it to music.