All these things being true of expression—both the expression of men and of God—the fact that machines which have poetry in them do not express it very well does not trouble me much. I do not forget the look of the first ocean-engine I ever saw—four or five stories of it; nor do I forget the look of the ocean-engine’s engineer as in its mighty heart-beat he stood with his strange, happy, helpless “Twelve thousand horse-power, sir!” upon his lips.
That first night with my first engineer still follows me. The time seems always coming back to me again when he brought me up from his whirl of wheels in the hold to the deck of stars, and left me—my new wonder all stumbling through me—alone with them and with my thoughts.
The engines breathe.
No sound but cinders on the sails
And the ghostly heave,
The voice the wind makes in the mast—
And dainty gales
And fluffs of mist and smoking stars
Floating past—
From night-lit funnels.