The Men Who Stuck to Me
The Men Who Stuck to Me - context Summary
Christmas Thanks to Companions
Composed as a Christmas song, the poem thanks a wide range of companions who stayed with the speaker through hardship. Lawson names men of varied origins, social ranks and conditions—including prisoners, strangers and old mates—emphasizing loyalty and mutual support amid suffering. The seasonal occasion frames the poem as an act of public gratitude, transforming personal indebtedness into a communal, restorative sentiment of kindness at year's end.
Read Complete AnalysesThey were men of many nations, they were men of many stations, They were men in many places, and of high and low degree; Men of many types and faces, but, alike in all the races, They were men I met in trouble, and the men who stuck to me. Some were friends, but most were strangers; some were weary world-wide rangers; Some in freedom were in prison, and in prison some were free, Oh, I have a vivid vision of the men I met in prison In the craving for tobacco they were men who stuck to me. Some I never met and never knew their great but vain endeavour, For my sake! And some were old mates whom I never more may see; Never heard me, some I talked with; never saw me, some I walked with; Blind and deaf, and dumb and foreign were the men who stuck to me. Yes, I’ll stick! the words most human, be the trouble man or woman; Stick with money or without it, and whoever you may be; Right or wrong in drink or sadness stick in sanity or madness Such as these, the men I stuck to, and the men who stuck to me. Ah! we see not in our blindness that the world is full of kindness, Kindness to make full atonement for all evil that there be; Oh! my life was deadly fateful, but my heart was always grateful, And I send this song at Christmas to the men who stuck to me.
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