| |
| LOOK at her—there she sits upon her throne | |
| As ladylike and quiet as a nun! | |
| But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts | |
| Will shake the earth! She’s proud as any queen, | |
| The beauty—knows her royal business too, | 5 |
| To light the world, and does it night by night | |
| When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job. | |
| I am her slave; I wake and watch and run | |
| From dark till dawn beside her. All the while | |
| She hums there softly, purring with delight | 10 |
| Because men bring the riches of the earth | |
| To feed her hungry fires. I do her will | |
| And dare not disobey, for her right hand | |
| Is power, her left is terror, and her anger | |
| Is havoc. Look—if I but lay a wire | 15 |
| Across the terminals of yonder switch | |
| She’ll burst her windings, rip her casings off, | |
| And shriek till envious Hell shoots up its flames, | |
| Shattering her very throne. And all her people, | |
| The laboring, trampling, dreaming crowds out there— | 20 |
| Fools and the wise who look to her for light— | |
| Will walk in darkness through the liquid night | |
| Submerged. | |
| |
| Sometimes I wonder why she stoops | |
| To be my friend—oh yes, who talks to me | 25 |
| And sings away my loneliness; my friend | |
| Though I am trivial and she sublime. | |
| Hard-hearted?—No, tender and pitiful, | |
| As all the great are. Every arrogant grief | |
| She comforts quietly, and all my joys | 30 |
| Dance to her measures through the tolerant night. | |
| She talks to me, tells me her troubles too, | |
| Just as I tell her mine. Perhaps she feels | |
| An ache deep down—that agonizing stab | |
| Of grit grating her bearings; then her voice | 35 |
| Changes its tune, it wails and calls to me | |
| To soothe her anguish, and I run, her slave, | |
| Probe like a surgeon and relieve the pain. | |
| |
| We have our jokes too, little mockeries | |
| That no one else in all the swarming world | 40 |
| Would see the point of. She will laugh at me | |
| To show her power: maybe her carbon packings | |
| Leak steam, and I run madly back and forth | |
| To keep the infernal fiends from breaking loose: | |
| Suddenly she will throttle them herself | 45 |
| And chuckle softly, far above me there, | |
| At my alarms. | |
| |
| But there are moments—hush!— | |
| When my turn comes; her slave can be her master, | |
| Conquering her he serves. For she’s a woman, | 50 |
| Gets bored there on her throne, tired of herself, | |
| Tingles with power that turns to wantonness. | |
| Suddenly something’s wrong—she laughs at me, | |
| Bedevils the frail wires with some mad caress | |
| That thrills blind space, calls down ten thousand lightnings | 55 |
| To ruin her pomp and set her spirit free. | |
| Then with this puny hand, swift as her threat, | |
| Must I beat back the chaos, hold in leash | |
| Destructive furies, rescue her—even her— | |
| From the fierce rashness of her truant mood, | 60 |
| And make me lord of far and near a moment, | |
| Startling the mystery. Last night I did it— | |
| Alone here with my hand upon her heart | |
| I faced the mounting fiends and whipped them down; | |
| And never a wink from the long file of lamps | 65 |
| Betrayed her to the world. | |
| |
| So there she sits, | |
| Mounted on all the ages, at the peak | |
| Of time. The first man dreamed of light, and dug | |
| The sodden ignorance away, and cursed | 70 |
| The darkness; young primeval races dragged | |
| Foundation stones, and piled into the void | |
| Rage and desire; the Greek mounted and sang | |
| Promethean songs and lit a signal fire: | |
| The Roman bent his iron will to forge | 75 |
| Deep furnaces; slow epochs riveted | |
| With hope the secret chambers: till at last | |
| We, you and I, this living age of ours, | |
| A new-winged Mercury, out of the skies | |
| Filch the wild spirit of light, and chain him there | 80 |
| To do her will forever. | |
| |
| Look, my friend, | |
| Here is a sign! What is this crystal sphere— | |
| This little bulb of glass I lightly lift, | |
| This iridescent bubble a child might blow | 85 |
| Out of its brazen pipe to hold the sun— | |
| What strange toy is it? In my hand it lies | |
| Cold and inert, its puny artery— | |
| That curling cobweb film—ashen and dead. | |
| But now—a twist or two—let it but touch | 90 |
| The hem, far trailing, of my lady’s robe, | |
| And look, the burning life-blood of the stars | |
| Leaps to its heart, and glows against the dark, | |
| Kindling the world. | |
| |
| Even so I touch her garment, | 95 |
| Her servant through the quiet night; and thus | |
| I lay my hand upon the Pleiades | |
| And feel their throb of fire. Grandly she gives | |
| To me unworthy; woman inscrutable, | |
| Scatters her splendors through my darkness, leads me | 100 |
| Far out into the workshop of the worlds. | |
| There I can feel those infinite energies | |
| Our little earth just gnaws at through the ether, | |
| And see the light our sunshine hides. Out there, | |
| Close to the heart of fife, I am at peace. | 105 |
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