A Song of Labor (Benjamin F. Griffeth)

Music files

L E G E N D

Disclaimer

How to download

ICON	SOURCE
	Pdf
	Mp3
	File details
	Help

• (Posted 2023-10-23)  CPDL #76555:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-23).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 372 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: A Song of Labor
Composer: Benjamin F. Griffeth
Lyricist: Henry Clay Preuss^{create page}
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1898 S. W. Straub & Co.
Description: Though a "secular" song written for use in singing schools, text has sacred language.

Original text and translations

English text

Whom shall we call our heroes?
To whom our praises sing?
The pampered child of fortune?
The titled lord or king?
They live by other’s labor,
Take all and nothing give;
The noblest types of manhood,
Are they who work to live.

Then honor to our workmen,
Our hardy sons of toil;
The heroes of the workshop,
And monarchs of the soil!

For many barren ages,
Earth hid her treasures deep;
And all her giant forces
Seemed bound as in a sleep.
Then labor’s “Anvil Chorus”
Broke on the startled air,
And lo! the earth in rapture
Laid all her treasures bare.

The Grand Almighty Builder,
Who fashioned out this earth,
Hath tamped his seal of honor
On labor, from her birth.
In every angel flower
That blossoms from the sod,
Behold, the master touches
The handiwork of God!