{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-song-of-the-wage-slave",
 "title": "The Song of the Wage-Slave",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 11,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 38,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 73,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hope that it won’t be hellfire, as some of the parsons say.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I hope that it won’t be heaven, with some of the parsons I’ve met⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Threescore years of labour⁠—Thine be the long day’s work.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now, Big Master, I’m broken and bent and twisted and scarred,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I’ve held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I’ve played the fool⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil’s tool.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was just like a child with money: I flung it away with a curse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot’s purse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Everything hard but headwork (I’d no more brains than a kid),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A brute with brute strength to labour, doing as I was bid;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Living in camps with menfolk, a lonely and loveless life;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A brute with brute strength to labour, and they were so far above⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I’d gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet how I’d ha’ treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, ’tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I’ve lived my life as I found it, and I’ve done my best to be good;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, the primitive toiler, half naked, and grimed to the eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hulling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down in the ditch building o’er me palaces fairer than dreams;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Master, I’ve filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the long, long shift is over⁠ ⁠… Master, I’ve earned it⁠—Rest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}