I hated the miner, that miner, gaunt, naked and strong,
With his flaring and crimson torch,
And his sharp pickaxe,
I hated him, and I wished I was a weapon to bite into his heart —
Ho! ho! ho! how I would have laughed, as I bit into his heart,
That miner, gaunt, naked and strong,
For lifting me from my dull and sullen sleep
Into the presence of so radiant a being as the golden-tressed, beautiful sun-god.
For I was black, from my dull and sullen sleep,
And the dross of long years, of long years that I spent in the mine, clung about me like barnacles to a ship.