Like emmet hosts that earnest strive,
Swarmed, toiled, a vast, strange crowd:
Haggard each worker's features seem,
Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam,
Nor cry, nor accent loud.
But each man dug, or rocked, or bore,
As if salvation with the ore
Of the mine-monarch lay.
Gold strung each arm to giant might,
Gold flashed before each aching sight,