Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, |
An', taught by time, I tak’ it so - exceptin' always Steam. |
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, О God - |
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. |
John Calvin might ha' forged the same - enorrmous, certain, slow - |
Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame - my «Institutio.» |
I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; |
I'll stand the middle watch up here - alone wi' God an' these |
My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain |
Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin’ home again. |
Slam-bang too much - they knock a wee - the crosshead-gibs are loose, |
But thirty thousand miles o' sea has gied them fair excuse. ... |
Fine, clear an' dark - a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o’ sight, |
An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night! |
His wife's at Plymouth. ... Seventy - One - Two - |
Three since he began - |
Three turns for Mistress Ferguson... and who's to blame the man? |
There’s none at any port for me, by drivin’ fast or slow, |
Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. |
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Fra’ Maryhill to Pollokshaws - fra’ Govan to Parkhead!) |
Not but they’re ceevil on the Board. Ye’ll hear Sir Kenneth say: |
«Good morrn, McAndrew! Back again? An’ how’s your bilge to-day?» |
Miscallin’ technicalities but handin’ me my chair |
To drink Madeira wi’ three Earls - the auld Fleet Engineer |
That started as a boiler-whelp - when steam and he were low. |
I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi’ tow? |
Ten pound was all the pressure then - Eh! Eh! - a man wad drive; |
An’ here, our workin’ gauges give one hundred sixty-five! |
We’re creepin’ on wi’ each new rig - less weight an’ larger power; |
There’ll be the loco-boiler next an’ thirty mile an hour! |
Thirty an’ more. What I ha’ seen since ocean-steam began |
Leaves me na doot for the machine; but what about the man? |
The man that counts, wi’ all his runs, one million miles o’ sea: |
Four time the span from earth to moon. ... How far, O Lord, from Thee |
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That wast beside him night an’ day? Ye mind my first typhoon? |
It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi’ the saloon. |
Three feet were on the stokehold-floor - just slappin’ to an’ fro - |
An’ cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. |
Marks! I ha' marks o’ more than burns - deep in my soul an’ black, |
’ times like this, when things go smooth, my wickedness comes back. |
The sins o’ four an’ forty years, all up an’ down the seas, |
Clack an’ repeat like valves half-fed. ... Forgie’s our trespasses! |
Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi’ envy in my gaze, |
The couples kittlin’ in the dark between the funnel-stays; |
Years when I raked the Ports wi’ pride to fill my cup o’ wrong - |
Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong? |
Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode - |
Jane Harrigan’s an’ Number Nine, The Reddick an’ Grant Road! |
An’ waur than all - my crownin’ sin - rank blasphemy an’ wild. |
I was not four and twenty then - Ye wadna judge a child? |
I’d seen the Tropics first that run - new fruit, new smells, new air - |
How could I tell - blind-fou wi’ sun - the Deil was lurkin’ there? |
By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes; |
By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies, |
In port (we used no cargo-steam) I’d daunder down the streets - |
An ijjit grinnin’ in a dream - for shells an’ parrakeets, |
An’ walkin’-sticks o’ carved bamboo an’ blowfish stuffed an’ dried - |
Fillin’ my bunk wi’ rubbishry the Chief put overside. |
Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca', |
Milk-warm wi’ breath o’ spice an’ bloom: «McAndrew, come awa’!» |
’ low - no haste, no hate - the ghostly whisper went, |
Just statin’ eevedential facts bey on’ all argument: |
«Your mither’s God’s a graspin’ deil, the shadow о yoursel’, |
«Got out o’ books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an’ Hell. |
«They mak’ him in the Broomielaw, o’ Glasgie cold an’ dirt, |
«А jealous, pridefu’ fetich, lad, that’s only strong to hurt. |
«Ye’ll not go back to Him again an’ kiss His red-hot rod, |
«But come wi’ Us» (Now, who were They?) «an’ know the Leevin’ God, |
«That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest, |
«But swells the ripenin’ cocoanuts an’ ripes the woman’s breast.» |
An’ there it stopped - cut off - no more - that quiet, certain voice - |
For me, six months o’ twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. |
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’Twas on me like a thunderclap - it racked me through an’ through - |
Temptation past the show o’ speech, unnameable an’ new - |
The Sin against the Holy Ghost? ... An’ under all, our screw. |
That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin’ swell. |
Thou knowest all my heart an’ mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell - |
Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that night in Hell! |
Yet was Thy Hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy Care - |
Fra’ Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o’ despair, |
But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer! ... |
’ held our fire, |
An’ I was drowsin’ on the hatch - sick - sick wi’ doubt an’ tire: |
«Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o’ desire!» |
Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs - again, an’ once again, |
When rippin’ down through coral-trash ran out our moorin’ chain: |
An’, by Thy Grace, I had the Light to see my duty plain. |
Light on the engine-room - no more - bright as our carbons burn. |
I’ve lost it since a thousand times, but never past return! |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Obsairve! Per annum we’ll have here two thousand souls aboard - |
Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, |
But - average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra’ port to port - |
I am o’service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought? |
Maybe they steam from grace to Wrath - to sin by folly led - |
It isna mine to judge their path - their lives are on my head. |
Mine at the last - when all is done it all comes back to me, |
The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea. |
We’ll tak’ one stretch - three weeks an’ odd by ony road ye steer - |
Fra’ Cape Town east to Wellington - ye need an engineer. |
Fail there - ye’ve time to weld your shaft - ay, eat it, ere ye’re spoke; |
Or make Kerguelen under sail - three jiggers burned wi’ smoke! |
’ home again - the Rio run: it’s no child’s play to go |
Steamin’ to bell for fourteen days o’ snow an’ floe an’ blow. |
The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an’ turn an’ shift |
Whaur, grindin’ like the Mills o’ God, goes by the big South drift. |
(Hail, Snow and Ice that praise the Lord. I’ve met them at their work, |
An’ wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.) |
Yon’s strain, hard strain, o’ head an’ hand, for though Thy Power brings |
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All skill to naught, Ye’ll understand a man must think o’ things. |
Then, at the last, we’ll get to port an’ hoist their baggage clear - |
The passengers, wi’ gloves an’ canes - an’ this is what I’ll hear: |
«Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender’s cornin’ now.» |
While I go testin’ follower-bolts an’ watch the skipper bow. |
They’ve words for every one but me - shake hands wi’ half the crew, |
Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew. |
An’ yet I like the wark for all we’ve dam’-few pickin’s here - |
No pension, an’ the most we’ll earn ’s four bunder pound a year. |
Better myself abroad? Maybe. I ’d sooner starve than sail |
Wi’ such as call a snifter-rod ross. ... French for nightingale. |
Commeesion on my stores? Some do; but I cannot afford |
To lie like stewards wi’ patty pans. I’m older than the Board. |
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’ll grudge their food to those. |
(There’s bricks that I might recommend - an’ clink the firebars cruel. |
No! Welsh - Wangarti at the worst - an’ damn all patent fuel!) |
Inventions? Ye must stay in port to mak’ a patent pay. |
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I blame go chaps wi’ clearer heads for aught they make or sell. |
I found that I could not invent an’ look to these as well. |
So, wrestled wi’ Apollyon - Nah! - fretted like a bairn - |
But burned the workin’-plans last run, wi’ all I hoped to earn. |
’ what that meant to me - |
E’en tak’ it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. ... |
Below there! Oiler! What's your wark? Ye find it runnin' hard? |
Ye needn't swill the cup wi' oil - this isn't the Cunard! |
Ye thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again! |
’s deeficult to sweer nor tak’ The Name in vain! |
Men, ay, an’ women, call me stern. Wi’ these to oversee, |
Ye’ll note I’ve little time to burn on social repartee. |
The bairns see what their elders miss; they’ll hunt me to an’ fro, |
Till for the sake of - well, a kiss - I tak’ ’em down below. |
’s kin - the chap |
Wi’ Russia-leather tennis-shoon an’ spar-decked yachtin’-cap. |
’er all - an’ at the last says he: |
«Mister McAndrew, don’t you think steam spoils romance at sea?» |
Damned ijjit! I’d been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, |
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’, on my back - the cranks three inches off my nose. |
Romance! Those first-class passengers they like it very well, |
Printed an’ bound in little books; but why don’t poets tell? |
I’m sick of all their quirks an’ turns - the loves an’ doves they dream - |
Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o’ Steam! |
’ Scotia’s noblest speech yon orchestra sublime |
Whaurto - uplifted like the Just - the tail-rods mark the time. |
The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an’ heaves, |
An’ now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves: |
Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides, |
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glimmerin’ through the guides. |
They’re all awa’! True beat, full power, the clangin’ chorus goes |
Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin’ dynamoes. |
Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, |
’ll note, at ony tilt an’ every rate o’ speed. |
Fra’ skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an’ stayed, |
An’ singin’ like the Mornin’ Stars for joy that they are made; |
’ touch o’ vanity, the sweatin’ thrust-block says: |
«Not unto us the praise, or man - not unto us the praise!» |
’together, hear them lift their lesson - theirs an’ mine: |
«Law, Orrder, Duty an’ Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!» |
Mill, forge an’ try-pit taught them that when roarin’ they arose, |
An’ whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi’ the blows. |
Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain. |
’ plain! |
But no one cares except mysel’ that serve an’ understand |
My seven thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord! They’re |
grand - they’re grand! |
Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, |
’ all things good? |
Not so! O’ that warld-liftin’ joy no after-fall could vex, |
Ye’ve left a glimmer still to cheer the Man - the Arrtifex! |
That holds, in spite o’ knock and scale, o’ friction, waste an’ slip, |
An’ by that light - now, mark my word - we’ll build the Perfect Ship. |
’ll never last to judge her lines or take her curve - not I. |
But I ha’ lived an’ I ha’ worked. Be thanks to Thee, Most High! |
An’ I ha’ done what I ha’ done - judge Thou if ill or well - |
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Always Thy Grace preventin’me. ... Losh! Yon’s the «Stand-by» bell. |
’-watch is set. |
’, I’m no Pelagian yet. |
Bow I’ll tak’ on. ... |
’Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought |
What your good leddy costs in coal? ... I’ll burn ’em down to port. |