THE SONG OF THE WHEELS
All the wheels are thine, master—tell the wheels to run!
Yea, the Wheels are mighty gods—set them going then!
We are only men, master, have you heard of men?
"O, they live on earth like fishes, and a gasp is all their breath.
God for empty honours only gave them death and scorn of death,
And you walk the worms for carpet and you tread a stone that squeals—
Only, God that made them worms did not make them wheels.
Man shall shut his heart against you and you shall not find the spring.
Man who wills the thing he wants not, the intolerable thing—
Once he likes his empty belly better than your empty head
Earth and heaven are dumb before him: he is stronger than the dead.
"Call upon the wheels, master, call upon the wheels,
Steel is beneath your hand, stone beneath your heels,
Steel will never laugh aloud, hearing what we heard,
Stone will never break its heart, mad with hope deferred—
Men of tact that arbitrate, slow reform that heals—
Save the stinking grease, master, save it for the wheels.
