Ode to labor; Whitman celebrated the nobility of work.

COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

At the dawning of the 21st century, most Americans mark Labor Day by avoiding labor - not just on the first Monday in September, but throughout the three- or four-day weekends during which they have arranged to be absent from their places of employment.

The respite from work and recreational end-of-summer rituals with friends and family are no less important today than they were when Congress first proclaimed Labor Day a legal holiday in 1894. Then, however, the holiday was not simply a pretext for a long weekend, but rather was a reflection of a growing embrace throughout the 19th century of America's egalitarian ideals - and a growing appreciation, in an era of rapid industrialization, of the nobility of work.

Few of the thinkers of the day embraced and promoted those ideals more fervently than the poet Walt Whitman, who used them as a recurring theme in his monumental poem, "Leaves of Grass" - including the exuberant section referred to as "A Song for Occupations," excerpts of which we offer today.

A song for occupations!

In the labor of the engines and trades and the labor of the fields I find the developments,

And find the eternal meanings.

... House-building, measuring, sawing the boards,

Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle-dressing,

Ship-joining, dock building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers,

The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln,

Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness, echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smutch'd faces,

Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men around feeling the melt with huge crow-bars, lumps of ore, the due combining of ore, lime-stone, coal,

... Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the great mills and factories,

Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facade or window or door-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,

The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire under the kettle,

The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice,

The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,

Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes, brush-making, glazier's implements,

The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,

The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edged tools,

The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything that is done by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers,

Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping,

Stave machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines, trashing-machines, steam wagons,

... Pyrotechny, letting off color'd fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets,

Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his killing-clothes,

... The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroad, coasters, fish-boats, canals;

The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard, store, or factory, ...

In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,

In them, not yourself - you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation,

In them the development good - in them all themes, hints, possibilities.

I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise you to stop,

I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,

But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.