Page:Lollingdon Downs and other poems, Masefield, 1917.djvu/31

Rh The hammer dropped out of his hand,

The iron rose, it gathered shape,

It took the blacksmith by the nape,

It pressed him to the furnace, and

Heaped fire upon him till his form

Was molten, flinging sparks aloft,

Until his bones were melted soft,

His hairs crisped in a fiery storm.

The iron drew him from the blaze

To place him on the anvil, then

It beat him from the shape of men,

Like drugs the apothecary brays;

Beat him to ploughing-coulters, beat

Body and blood to links of chain,

With endless hammerings of pain,

Unending torment of white heat;

And did not stop the work, but still

Beat on him while the furnace roared;

The blacksmith suffered and implored,

With iron bonds upon his will.