THE SONG OF THE POKER.
The Poker,
Clanging.
I am the Poker the straight and the strong,
Prone in the fire grate,
Black at the nether end,
Knobby and nebulous.
Fashioned for fight
In the Pit Acherontic:
Many have grappled me,
Poised me and thrust me
Into the glowing,
The flashing and furious
Heart of the fire.
Raked with me, prized with me,
Till on a sudden
Besparked and encircled
With Welsh or with Wallsend,
Shattering, battering
They drew me away.
Others in rivalry,
Thinking to better
The previous performance,
Seized me again;
Pushed with a leverage
Hard on the haft of me,
Till with the shocks
Sank the red fire,
Shivered and sank
Subdued into blackness.
That is my Toil;
I am the Poker.
Oh, and the burglar's head
Often hath felt me,
Hard, undesirable
Cracker of craniums.
I have drunk of the blood,
The red blood, the life-blood
Of the wife of the drunkard.
Hoh! then, the glory.
The joyous, ineffable
Cup of fulfilment,
When the policeman,
Tall with a bull's-eye,
Took me and shook me,
Produced me in evidence,
There in the dim
Unappeasable grisliness
Of the Police-Court.
Women to shrink at me,
Men to be cursed with me,
Bloodstained, contemptuous,
Laid on the table.
I am the Minister,
Azrael's Minister.
I am the Poker.
