For food to keep him toiling in the cages they have wrought;
And they fling him hour by hour
Limbs of men to give him power.
Brains of men to give him cunning; and for dainties to devour
Children’s souls, the little worth; hearts of women, cheaply bought.
He takes them and he breaks them, but he gives them scanty thought.”
Quite different is the treatment of “The Lightning Express” by a western poet, Mr. J. P. Irvine, yet the poetic note is clearly and surely struck in his stanzas too:—
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“In storm and darkness, night and day,
Through mountain gorge or level way,