“In this country immigrants from the same town stick together like a swarm of bees from the same hive and work where the foreman, or ‘boss,’ finds a job for the gang. At first I was water-boy and then shortly after I took my place beside my father. I always was, and am, a pick-and-shovel man.” Pascal D’Angelo worked here and there at similar rough labour, in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, West Virginia, Maryland—at first unable to read newspapers printed in English and unaware that there were any printed in Italian. But gradually he learned to read, and always he was a poet. “When night comes and we all quit work the thud of the pick and the jingling of the shovel are not heard any more. All my day’s labours are gone, for ever. But if I write a line of poetry my work is not lost, my line is still there—it can be read by you today and can be read by another tomorrow. But my pick-and-shovel works can be read neither by you today nor by another tomorrow.... So I yearn for an opportunity to see what I can accomplish ... before suffering, cold, wet, and rheumatism begin to harm me in the not distant future.” One of the finest lyrics of his which I have seen thus gives a picture of the world in which he then moved: In the dark verdure of summer The railroad tracks are like the chords of a lyre gleaming across the dreamy valley, And the road crosses them like a flash of lightning. But the souls of many who speed like music on the melodious heart-strings of the valley Are dim with storms. And the soul of a farm lad who plods, whistling, on the lightning road Is a bright blue sky.