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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=403113" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Turbine</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">To W. S. M. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Look at her—there she sits upon her throne <br>As ladylike and quiet as a nun! <br>But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts <br>Will shake the earth! She's proud as any queen,<br>The beauty—knows her royal business too, <br>To light the world, and does it night by night <br>When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job. <br>I am her slave; I wake and watch and run <br>From dark till dawn beside her. All the while <br>She hums there softly, purring with delight <br>Because men bring the riches of the earth <br>To feed her hungry fires. I do her will <br>And dare not disobey, for her right hand <br>Is power, her left is terror, and her anger <br>Is havoc. Look—if I but lay a wire <br>Across the terminals of yonder switch <br>She'll burst her windings, rip her casings off, <br>And shriek till envious Hell shoots up its flames, <br>Shattering her very throne. And all her people, <br>The laboring, trampling, dreaming crowds out there—<br>Fools and the wise who look to her for light— <br>Will walk in darkness through the liquid night, Submerged.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sometimes I wonder why she stoops <br>To be my friend—oh yes, who talks to me <br>And sings away my loneliness; my friend, <br>Though I am trivial and she sublime. <br>Hard-hearted?—No, tender and pitiful, <br>As all the great are. Every arrogant grief <br>She comforts quietly, and all my joys <br>Dance to her measures through the tolerant night.<br>She talks to me, tells me her troubles too, <br>Just as I tell her mine. Perhaps she feels <br>An ache deep down—that agonizing stab <br>Of grit grating her bearings; then her voice <br>Changes its tune, it wails and calls to me<br>To soothe her anguish, and I run, her slave, <br>Probe like a surgeon and relieve the pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We have our jokes too, little mockeries <br>That no one else in all the swarming world <br>Would see the point of. She will laugh at me <br>To show her power: maybe her carbon packings <br>Leak steam, and I run madly back and forth <br>To keep the infernal fiends from breaking loose:<br>Suddenly she will throttle them herself <br>And chuckle softly, far above me there, <br>At my alarms. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But there are moments—hush!— <br>When my turn comes; her slave can be her master,<br>Conquering her he serves. For she's a woman, <br>Gets bored there on her throne, tired of herself,<br>Tingles with power that turns to wantonness. <br>Suddenly something's wrong—she laughs at me, <br>Bedevils the frail wires with some mad caress <br>That thrills blind space, calls down ten thousand <br>To ruin her pomp and set her spirit free. <br>Then with this puny hand, swift as her threat, <br>Must I beat back the chaos, hold in leash <br>Destructive furies, rescue her—even her— <br>From the fierce rashness of her truant mood, <br>And make me lord of far and near a moment, <br>Startling the mystery. Last night I did it— <br>Alone here with my hand upon her heart <br>I faced the mounting fiends and whipped them down;<br>And never a wink from the long file of lamps <br>Betrayed her to the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So there she sits,<br>Mounted on all the ages, at the peak <br>Of time. The first man dreamed of light, and dug<br>The sodden ignorance away, and cursed <br>The darkness; young primeval races dragged <br>Foundation stones, and piled into the void <br>Rage and desire; the Greek mounted and sang <br>Promethean songs and lit a signal fire; <br>The Roman bent his iron will to forge <br>Deep furnaces; slow epochs riveted <br>With hope the secret chambers: till at last <br>We, you and I, this living age of ours, <br>A new-winged Mercury, out of the skies <br>Filch the wild spirit of light, and chain him there <br>To do her will forever.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look, my friend,<br>Behold a sign! What is this crystal sphere— <br>This little bulb of glass I lightly lift, <br>This iridescent bubble a child might blow <br>Out of its brazen pipe to hold the sun— <br>What strange toy is it? In my hand it lies <br>Cold and inert, its puny artery— <br>That curling cobweb film—ashen and dead. <br>But see—a twist or two—let it but touch <br>The hem, far trailing, of my lady's robe, <br>And lo, the burning life-blood of the stars <br>Leaps to its heart, that glows against the dark, <br>Kindling the world. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Even so I touch her garment, <br>Her servant through the quiet night; and thus <br>And feel their throb of fire. Grandly she gives <br>To me unworthy; woman inscrutable, <br>Scatters her splendors through my darkness, leads me<br>Far out into the workshop of the worlds. <br>There I can feel those infinite energies <br>Our little earth just gnaws at through the ether, <br>And see the light our sunshine hides. Out there <br>Close to the heart of life I am at peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Harriet+Monroe">Harriet Monroe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=403113" data-title="The Turbine de Harriet Monroe" data-description="To W. S. M. 


Look at her—there she sits upon her throne 
As ladylike and quiet as a nun! 
But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts 
Will shake the earth! She's proud as any queen,
The beauty—knows her royal business too, 
To light the w..."></div>
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