The Village Blacksmith -- Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low. FUN FACTS: In the dystopian novel 1984 by Eric Blair, one location featured is the Chestnut Tree Cafe called the "haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an unwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place was somehow ill-omened."

There is a rhyme about the cafe that re-occurs throughout the book:

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me

There lie they, and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree

This is considered to be a translation of Longfellow's Poem into Newspeak, the invented language of the Novel which is meant to reduce extraneous though and subtly censor rebellion.

Image Credit: Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan by Diego Velasquez