A Favourite Hymn, by a Great War Army Chaplain

Not mine this time, but a favourite hymn by G. A. Studdert Kennedy, an army chaplain of the Great War, and a Christian Socialist, known to the troops as 'Woodbine Willie', from the cigarettes he gave them.

I haven't heard it since I last sang it at school fifty five years ago. It made me tearful then, and it still does, with its noble vision of the dignity of labour, affirmed by Saint Augustine ("as Austen bit"), and treasured by me.

When through the whirl of wheels and engines humming,
Patiently powerful for the sons of men,
Peals like a trumpet promise of His coming,
Who in the clouds is pledged to come again.

When through the night the furnace fires a-flaring,
Shooting out tongues of flame like leaping blood,
Speak to the soul of Man, alive and daring,
Speak of the boundless energy of God.

When in the depths the patient miner striving,
Feels in his arms the vigour of the Lord,
Strikes for a Kingdom and his King's arriving,
Holding his pick more splendid than a sword.

When on the sweat of labour and its sorrow,
Toiling in twilight, flickering and dim,
Flames out the sunshine of the great to-morrow,
When all the world looks up because of Him.

Then will He come, with meekness for His glory,
God in a workman's jacket as before,
Living again the Eternal Gospel Story,
Sweeping the shavings from His workshop floor.