Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1141

 WALTER DE LA MARE

Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; Since that all things thou wouldst praise Beauty took from those who loved them In other days.

��GORDON BOTTOMLEY

036 To Iron-Founders and Others

rHEN you destroy a blade of grass You poison England at her roots: Remember no man's foot can pass Where evermore no green Jife shoots.

��W!

��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 tetter'd crust.

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