Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/55

Rh Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair

To drink Madeira wi' three Earls—the auld Fleet Engineer,

That started as a boiler-whelp—when steam and he were low.

I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow.

Ten pound was all the pressure then—Eh! Eh!—a man wad drive;

An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder fifty-five!

We're creepin' on wi' each new rig—less weight an' larger power:

There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour!

Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began

Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about the man?

The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea:

Four time the span from earth to moon. . . . How far, O Lord, from Thee?