Six days in the week do I toil for my bread,
And surely should feel like a slave,
Except for a Providence fix'd overhead
That hallow'd the duties it gave;
I work for my mother, my babes, and my wife,
And starving and stern is my toil,--
For who can tell truly how hard is the life
Of a labouring son of the soil?

A debt to the debtor, a score at the shop,
And plenty of trouble and strife,--
While backbreaking toil makes me ready to drop,
Worn out and aweary of life!
O, were there no gaps in the month or the year,
No comfort, or peace, or repose,
How long should I battle with miseries here,
How soon be weigh'd down by my woes!

Six days in the week, then, I struggle and strive,
And, O! but the seventh is blest;
Then only I seem to be free and alive,
My soul and my body at rest:
I needn't get up in the cold and the dark,
I needn't go work in the rain,
On that happy morning I wait till the lark
Has trill'd to the sunshine again!

Unhearied for once, well shaven and clean,
With babes and the mother at meals,
I gather what home and its happiness mean,
And feel as a gentleman feels:
Then drest in my best I go blithely to church,
And meet my old mates on the way,
To gossip awhile in the ivy'd old porch,
And hear all the news of the day.

And soon as the chimes of the merry bells cease,
--O rare is the bell-ringers' din!--
We calmly compose us to prayer and to peace,
As Jabez is tolling us in;
And then in the place where my fathers have pray'd,
I praise and I pray at my best,
And smile as their child when I hope to be laid
In the same bit of turf where they rest!

For wisely his Reverence tells of the dead
As living, and waiting indeed
A bright Resurrection,-- 'twas happily said,--
From earth and its misery freed!
And then do I know that though poor I am rich,
An heir of great glories above,
Till it seems like a throne,-- my old seat in the niche
Of the wall of the church that I love!

So, praise the Good Lord for his sabbaths, I say,
So kindly reserved for the poor;
The wealthy can rest and be taught any day,
But we have but one and no more!
Ay,-- what were the labouring man without these
His sabbaths of body and mind?
A workweary wretch without respite or ease,
The curse and reproach of his kind!

And don't you be telling me, sages of trade,
The seventh's a loss in my gain;
I pretty well guess of what stuff you are made,
And know what you mean in the main:
You mete out the work, and the wages you fix,
And care for the make, not the men;
For seven you'd pay us the same as for six,--
And who would be day-winners then?

No, no, my shrewd masters! thank God that His law--
The Sabbath -- is law of the land;
Thank God that His wisdom so truly foresaw
What mercy so lovingly plann'd:
My babes go to school; and my Bible is read;
And I walk in my holiday dress;
And I get better fed; and my bones lie abed,--
And my wages are nothing the less!

Then Praises to God,-- and all health to the Queen,--
And thanks for the Sabbath, say I!
It is, as it shall be, and ever has been,
The earthgrubber's glimpse at the sky;
The Sabbath is ours, my mates of the field,--
A holyday once in the seven:
The Sabbath to Mammon we never will yield,
It is Poverty's foretaste of Heaven!