Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/79

Rh His hand was on the lever laid,

His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks,

His whistle waked the snowbound grade,

His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks;

By dock and deep and mine and mill

The Boy-god reckless laboured still!

Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell,

Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled,

With unconsidered miracle,

Hedged in a backward-gazing world;

Then taught his chosen bard to say:

'Our King was with us—yesterday!'