They say my work is almost through;
My ore assesses never a flake
But still I hope to make a stake.
In the Hobo News of August, 1921, Charles Thornburn records his reflections while he contemplates the empty, beaten faces of the men of the “stem”:
With ever restless tread, they come and go,
Or lean intent against the grimy wall,
These men whom fate has battered to and fro,
In the grim game of life, from which they all
Have found so much of that which is unkind,
Still hoping on, that fortune yet may mend,