With grave grey eyes, and a knitted brow,

The glare of sun and the gleam of snow

Those eyes have stared on this many a year.

The crow's-feet gather in mazes queer

About their corners most apt to choke

With grime of fuel and fume of smoke.

Little to tickle the artist taste—

An oil-can, a fist-full of "cotton waste,"

The lever's click and the furnace gleam,

And the mingled odour of oil and steam;