| |
| BENEATH my window in a city street | |
| A monster lairs, a creature huge and grim | |
| And only half believed: the strength of him— | |
| Steel-strung and fit to meet | |
| The strength of earth— | 5 |
| Is mighty as men’s dreams that conquer force. | |
| Steam belches from him. He is the new birth | |
| Of old Behemoth, late-sprung from the source | |
| Whence Grendel sprang, and all the monster clan | |
| Dead for an age, now born again of man. | 10 |
| |
| The iron head, | |
| Set on a monstrous, jointed neck, | |
| Glides here and there, lifts, settles on the red | |
| Moist floor, with nose dropped in the dirt, at beck | |
| Of some incredible control. | 15 |
| He snorts, and pauses couchant for a space, | |
| Then slowly lifts, and tears the gaping hole | |
| Yet deeper in earth’s flank. A sudden race | |
| Of loosened earth and pebbles trickles there | |
| Like blood-drops in a wound. | 20 |
| But he, the monster, swings his load around— | |
| Weightless it seems as air. | |
| His mammoth jaw | |
| Drops widely open with a rasping sound, | |
| And all the red earth vomits from his maw. | 25 |
| |
| O thwarted monster, born at man’s decree, | |
| A lap-dog dragon, eating from his hand | |
| And doomed to fetch and carry at command, | |
| Have you no longing ever to be free? | |
| In warm, electric days to run a-muck, | 30 |
| Ranging like some mad dinosaur, | |
| Your fiery heart at war | |
| With this strange world, the city’s restless ruck, | |
| Where all drab things that toil, save you alone, | |
| Have life; | 35 |
| And you the semblance only, and the strife? | |
| Do you not yearn to rip the roots of stone | |
| Of these great piles men build, | |
| And hurl them down with shriek of shattered steel, | |
| Scorning your own sure doom, so you may feel, | 40 |
| You too, the lust with which your fathers killed? | |
| Or is your soul in very deed so tame, | |
| The blood of Grendel watered to a gruel, | |
| That you are well content | |
| With heart of flame | 45 |
| Thus placidly to chew your cud of fuel | |
| And toil in peace for man’s aggrandizement? | |
| Poor helpless creature of a half-grown god, | |
| Blind of yourself and impotent! | |
| At night, | 50 |
| When your forerunners, sprung from quicker sod, | |
| Would range through primal woods, hot on the scent, | |
| Or wake the stars with amorous delight, | |
| You stand, a soiled, unwieldy mass of steel, | |
| Black in the arc-light, modern as your name, | 55 |
| Dead and unsouled and trite; | |
| Till I must feel | |
| A quick creator’s pity for your shame: | |
| That man, who made you and who gave so much, | |
| Yet cannot give the last transforming touch; | 60 |
| That with the work he cannot give the wage— | |
| For day, no joy of night, | |
| For toil, no ecstasy of primal rage. | |
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