Child of the Romans

SOURCE:            https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/753

KEYWORDS:  humility, work, labor, rich, poor,

The poetry of Carl Sandburg often documented the lives of ordinary working people in his adopted city of Chicago. Here, he contrasts the backbreaking work and simple lunch of a railroad laborer with the comfortable lives and fine food enjoyed by the passengers on a first-class dining car rushing by. Despite the use of the pejorative term "dago" (an ethnic slur for Italians), the poem's title and Sandburg's sympathetic portrayal suggest a loftier lineage for the humble worker.

CHILD OF THE ROMANS

by Carl Sandburg

THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track

Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.

A train whirls by, and men and women at tables

Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,

Eat steaks running with brown gravy,

Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.

The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,

Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,

And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work

Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils

Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases

Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.

Bread and Roses

SOURCE:  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/judycollins/breadandroses.html

https://lauragraceweldon.com/2022/07/04/bread-roses/

KEYWORDS:  Strike, Union, Labor, Justice, Soul, Body, 

The slogan “Bread and Roses” originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to “the women in the West.”

It is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January to March 1912, now often known as the “Bread and Roses strike.” The strike, which united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World, was led to a large extent by women.

As we go marching, marching in the beauty of the day

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses

For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men

For they are women's children, and we mother them again

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient song of bread

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew

Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days

The rising of the women means the rising of the race

No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes

But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies;

Bread and roses! Bread and roses!