To W.
S.
M.
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,
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 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 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—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 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 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 Changes its tune, it wails and calls to
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 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 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,
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 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,
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 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
The sodden ignorance away, and cursed 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 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 To do her will forever.
Look, my friend,
Behold a sign!
What is this crystal sphere— This little bulb of glass I lightly lift,
This iridescent bubble a child might blow 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 see—a twist or two—let it but touch The hem, far trailing, of my lady's robe,
And lo, the burning life-blood of the stars Leaps to its heart, that glows against the dark,
Kindling the world.
Even so I touch her garment,
Her servant through the quiet night; and thus And feel their throb of fire.
Grandly she gives To me unworthy; woman inscrutable,
Scatters her splendors through my darkness, leads
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 life I am at peace.
