He felt his blood, his dear delight,
Beat into shares, he felt it rive
The green earth red; he was alive,
Dragged through the earth by horses' might.
He felt his brain, that once had planned
His daily life, changed to a chain
Which curbed a sail or dragged a wain,
Or hoisted shiploads to the land.
He felt his heart, that once had thrilled
With love of wife and little ones,
Cut out and mingled with his bones
To pin the bricks where men rebuild.
He felt his very self impelled
To common uses, till he cried:
"There's more within me than is tried,
More than you ever think to weld.
"For all my pain I am only used
To make the props for daily labour;
I burn, I am beaten like a tabour
To make men tools: I am abused.
"Deep in the white heat where I gasp
I see the unmastered finer powers.
Iron by cunning wrought to flowers,
File-worked, not tortured by the rasp.
"Deep in this fire-tortured mind
Thought bends the bar in subtler ways;
It glows into the mass, its rays
Purge, till the iron is refined.
"Then, as the full moon draws the tide
Out of the vague uncaptained sea.
Some moony-power there ought to be
To work on ore; it should be tried.
"By this fierce fire in which I ache
I see new fires not yet begun,
A blacksmith smithying with the sun,
At unmade things man ought to make.
"Life is not fire and blows, but thought,
Attention kindling into joy;
Those who make nothing new destroy:
O me, what evil I have wrought!