Classic Poem

The crowbars loosed the plug of clay,
And bursting from the furnace' side
The spouting molten metal gushed
In a tumultuous seething tide

That surged into the winter night
With an exultant white-hot flare
And blinded heaven and all its stars
And the cold moon in one fierce glare,

Till in the mould of channelled sand
It cooled to red: then dull and slow
It crawled in grey congealing stream
That gradually ceased to flow:

When clinking crowbars snapped the chilled
And brittle metal short, and soon
In stark cold pigs the iron lay
Rigid beneath the icy moon.

And so the passionate seething tide
Of youth, the fury and the fire
That burned up heaven and earth in one
Exultant outburst of desire,

Grows dull and sluggish; and too soon
Shall my heart's metal, dead and cold,
Await the crowbar's snapping stroke,
Indifferent in its channelled mould.