The Machine

From the Evening Star, December 16, 1912. By Philander Johnson.


 How lucky is the great machine,
     Set up with cunning art.
 It runs unwearied and serene,
     A flywheel at its heart.
 Its stomach is the furnace great;
     Its muscles are of steel;
 It does not halt or hesitate;
     It does not think or feel.
 Its veins are filled with fluid fire;
     It knows no bliss or pain;
 No fierce, unsatisfied desire
     Persuades it to complain.
 When it is ill, no nostrums quench
     The energy that thrills—
 A man comes with a monkey wrench
     And cures it up or kills.
 And when it cannot do the tasks
     It has performed for years,
 It seeks the scrap pile and it asks
     No sympathy or tears.