Chapter II

Charge the blast furnace, workman...
Open the valves--
Drive the fires high...
(Night is above the gates).

How golden-hot the ore is
From the cupola spurting,
Tossing the flaming petals
Over the silt and furnace ash--
Blown leaves, devastating,
Falling about the world...

Out of the furnace mouth--
Out of the giant mouth--
The raging, turgid, mouth--
Fall fiery blossoms
Gold with the gold of buttercups
In a field at sunset,
Or huskier gold of dandelions,
Warmed in sun-leavings,
Or changing to the paler hue
At the creamy hearts of primroses.

Charge the converter, workman--
Tired from the long night?
But the earth shall suck up darkness--
The earth that holds so much...
And out of these molten flowers,
Shall shape the heavy fruit...

Then open the valves--
Drive the fires high,
Your blossoms nurturing.
(Day is at the gates
And a young wind...)

Put by your rod, comrade,
And look with me, shading your eyes...
Do you not see--
Through the lucent haze
Out of the converter rising--
In the spirals of fire
Smiting and blinding,
A shadowy shape
White as a flame of sacrifice,
Like a lily swaying?

III

The ore leaping in the crucibles,
The ore communicant,
Sending faint thrills along the leads...
Fire is running along the roots of the mountains...
I feel the long recoil of earth
As under a mighty quickening...
(Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron...)
All palpitant, I wait...