Say mate, have you seen the mills where the kids
at the loom spit blood?
Have you been in the mine when the fire-damp blew?
Shipped as a hand with a freighter's crew
or worked in a levy flood?
Have you rotted wet in a grazing camp or scorched
in a desert line?
Have you done your night stint with your lamp,
watching the timbers drip with damp
or hear the oil rig whine?
Have you had your pay held back for tools
you never saw or could use?
Have you gone like a fool with the other fools
to the bosses saloon where the strong arm rules
and cashed your time for booze?
I do no kicking at god or fate.
I keep my shoes for the road.
The long, grey road, and I love it, mate,
hay-foot, straw-foot, that's my gait,
and I carry no other man's load.
I don't mind working to earn my bread
and I'd just as soon keep straight,
But just like the preacher man said, I'm a ram
and I've missed the gate.
But I'm jogging along, jogging ahead,
perhaps I'll find it, mate.