Page:A Book of Czech Verse.pdf/83



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.