Such a common tool, you say: A simple little clawed or not-clawed club, Perhaps ball-peened or bladed on an end To shave a shingle or to lop a branch. The primary tool to build a car, An airport or a condominium, The striker on a gun for war or peace, The mallet used by dentists on your teeth. The weight that drives the piling down and down Beneath the sands and waters, seeking found. A hammer’s in a clock to call the time, And a gavel rules the mighty meeting hall. A hammer rang out freedom in our land, A hammer and a bell, a rope in hand. A piano without hammer has no tune, A drummer, without drumsticks, stays at home. What is a village blacksmith’s tree Short of the bellows and the forge? And the “muscles like iron bands” Without a hammer, a hammer in his hands” “And swords and shields to battle go,” But first the hammer makes them so, It places iron upon the horse’s hoof And drives the nail, the mighty nail that holds it there. Else, Sheridan could never come from “thirty miles away With foaming horse to halt the troops and save the day.” It builds the ships that ply upon the sea, But most of all, it builds a house for you and me. It’s a word, just like a maiden’s “no,” It can mean a lot of things. All in the way it’s used, shall tell the tale. You can throw a hammer lock, there’s a hammer for a knock, And a judge can hammer you into a jail. You can hammer down a door, policemen hammer in a door In their everlasting battle against “Sin.” I’ve been hammered by a bore, till my ears could stand no more, And I’ve had my heart a-hammering within. A hammer is a part of life and death, It fashions out the crib And nails the coffin lid, It helps us every day to fight life through. It’s a rock to break a shell, Helps an auctioneer to sell. (Let me hammer home these facts to all of you.) There are hammers at the meet, and jackhammers on the street, And a yellowhammer, pecking on a tree. But the 'hammer' of them all, be it twenty pounds or small, Is the one that builds a house for you and me.
