Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO IRON-FOUNDERS AND OTHERS, by GORDON BOTTOMLEY Poet's Biography First Line: When you destroy a blade of grass Last Line: Chisels men's hands to magnify. Subject(s): Environment; Industrial Revolution; Labor & Laborers; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation; Work; Workers | ||||||||
WHEN you destroy a blade of grass You poison England at her roots: Remember no man's foot can pass Where evermore no green life shoots. You force the birds to wing too high Where your unnatural vapours creep: Surely the living rocks shall die When birds no rightful distance keep. You have brought down the firmament And yet no heaven is more near; You shape huge deeds without event, And half made men believe and fear. Your worship is your furnaces, Which, like old idols, lost obscenes, Have molten bowels; your vision is Machines for making more machines. O, you are busied in the night, Preparing destinies of rust; Iron misused must turn to blight And dwindle to a tettered crust. The grass, forerunner of life, has gone, But plants that spring in ruins and shards Attend until your dream is done: I have seen hemlock in your yards. The generations of the worm Know not your loads piled on their soil; Their knotted ganglions shall wax firm Till your strong flagstones heave and toil. When the old hollowed earth is cracked, And when, to grasp more power and feasts, Its ores are emptied, wasted, lacked, The middens of your burning beasts Shall be raked over till they yield Last priceless slags for fashionings high, Ploughs to wake grass in every field, Chisels men's hands to magnify. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER WORKING SIXTY HOURS AGAIN FOR WHAT REASON by HICOK. BOB DAY JOB AND NIGHT JOB by ANDREW HUDGINS BIXBY'S LANDING by ROBINSON JEFFERS ON BUILDING WITH STONE by ROBINSON JEFFERS LINES FROM A PLUTOCRATIC POETASTER TO A DITCH-DIGGER by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS IN CALIFORNIA: MORNING, EVENING, LATE JANUARY by DENISE LEVERTOV |
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