Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/784

 766 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

"For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble, The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve,

They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers And if any one hinders our coming you II starve !"

THE SECRET OF THE MACHINES

CMODERN MACHINERY)

WERE taken from the ore-bed and the mine, We were melted in the furnace and the pit We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,

We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit. Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,

And a thousandth of an inch to give us play: And now if you will set us to our task,

We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive, We can print and plough and weave and heat and light, We can run and jump and swim and fly and dive, We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world ?

If you'll let us have his name and town and state, You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled

Across the arch of heaven while you wait. Has he answered ? Does he need you at his side ?

You can start this very evening if you choose, And take the Western Ocean in the stride

Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!