The Shipwright

Down in the shipyard, day and night, The Galahads of the dock, Hard as the sinews of basin rock, Build an ocean cosmopolite. The rivets stab and the hammers bite Into the beams and plates of steel Of the Diesel heart and the belly keel. We, The workers of the world strike catholic notes On woods and irons, wring from brassy throats Epics of industry. Day and night The diapason puts The bent-winged gulls to flight And shakes the harbor and quakes the ground And leaps at the suns like Prometheus bound. Our matrix shapes our citizen of the world To cross the churning mountains of the sea, Nor fashions a canoe to sail a lake In cool felicity.