WHO AM I?
Who am I? Come look and seeback in time through my history.I am the washerwoman whoher father’sI’m the man who made the bricks.The pauper child collecting sticks.I am the labourer who dug the land.I am the fisherman on the sand.I’m the woman who scrubbed the floors.The cart-man shivering by the doorswho, delivering his daily wares,died of consumption on the stairs.The boy who ran away to seato escape the ghetto’s misery.The Blacksmith in the hard East End.The cobbler who your boots would mend.I’m the girl who carried her childTo the Union Workhouse across the miles:There to die without a name,buried in a shallow grave.The soldier who died in a foreign trench.The young boy up before the benchfor stealing apples – such a crime,They locked him up to serve his time.I am the woman on the factory floorwho worked machines for a few bob moreto feed the mouths of her growing brood,to pay for the rent and some meagre food.I’m the man who built the bridge;the houses where the workers lived.I am their blood and sweat and toil.I am their bones within this soil.I am the tears of a thousand deaths.The whisper of thousand breaths.From a thousand hearts, to a single beatI now stand in thousand feet.In their footprints I tread through time.Cut my flesh – their blood is mine.For through this ordinary pedigreea thousand and more still live in me.
