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J. Wolker (1900–1924)
J. WOLKER
(1900–1924)
THE EYES OF THE STOKER
The factories are quiet
And silent lie the streets.
The stars that fringe the moon
Have sunk to sleep.
One place alone in all
The town is still so late
Awake, its fiery eyes
Are open, as it cries
Into the night that here,
Where girders and machines,
Where boilers, levers rise,
Ten labourers unite
Their strength with steel, to change
Their arms and eyes to light.
Stoke up the oven fire,
Stoker, Antonin,
Power-station hand!
And Antonin, as five
And twenty years before,
With iron shovel swings
Again the furnace door.
The hissing flames leap out;
Made young again he stands
As fierce the oven glows.
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