All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare—
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.
The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,
And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe!
It rises, roars, rends all outright—O, Vulcan, what a glow:
'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright—the high sun shines not so!
The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show;
The roof-ribs swart, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row
Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe
As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing-monster slow