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VIII. The Iron-Founders.

1

'Tis a fearful sight, on a Winter's night,
When the wind on the moors is high,
And here and there the furnace-glare,
Is ruddy across the sky:
15

And horribly bright from its funnel's height
A sheet of flame is cast;
And far below is the livid glow
Of the iron melting fast.

2

A weary watch, while others sleep,
A weary watch have we;
When the frost is sharp, and the night is deep,
And as lone as lone can be:
And the blast, that nothing can weary, roars
To the wind that roars again;
You might keep alive, with the air it pours,
Two hundred thousand men!

3

And hour by hour, as the distant stroke
Of the old church-clock we hear,
We feed the furnace with lime and coke,
Whereon he makes good cheer:
And hour by hour, in his red, red sides,
He melts the ore away;
And the liquid stream of metal glides
From the hearth to its bed of clay.

4

And this is the way that our hours decay,
And these are the toils that wear;
For our children's sake our rest we break
From youth to the hoary hair:
The very iron we fashion out,
Of turmoil tells its tale;
The cannon that roars in the battle-shout,
The anchor and the rail.

5

We murmur not that the words were said
To all of mortal frame,
In the sweat of our brow we must needs eat bread,
Till we turn from whence we came:
But when clouds fly off, and tempests cease,
And skies are calm and clear,
We cannot but long for the Land of Peace,
And the quiet we know not here!
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