Canal Navigators and Legerdemain
Candle in hand in bucket-lift airshafts,
Anonymous men in diseased shanty huts,
Or lost on the tramp in the town or the country,
With no union-pub to rest body and head,
No Blacksmith’s Arms or Plough in the county,
But a damp clay embankment instead for a bed;
Or cutting or gradient, a bridge or a wagon,
A lock-gate or brick works, a clay pit or trench,
Or making the running up the deep cutting,
A thirty-foot climb with barrow and earth,
Two miles of running and landslide bone crushing,
With pick and with shovel, gunpowder and shot;
Tunnelling through the mud and the water,
Conned by contractor and ganger and truck,
Calumnied by the press and the pulpit,
We wander today by their muscle and sweat,
And barge names today tell of eloquent fame,
But who can remember a navvy’s true name?
Their fustian skill and anonymous strength
Built our canals on their horse power length,
But it’s hard to discover a navvy’s true name,
In canal history files and ledger’s domain.