The Song of Steel
Yea, art thou lord, O Man, since Tubal Cain
Brought me into being, white and torn with pain--
Wrung me, in fierce, hot agony of birth,
Writhing from out of the womb of mother earth.
Art thou, then, king, and did I make thee lord,
Clothe thee in mail and gird thee with the sword,
Give thee the plough, the ax, the whirring wheel--
To every subtle craft its tools of steel?
Look! We have slain the forests, thou and I--
Soiled the bright streams and murked the very sky;
Crushed the glad hills and shocked the quiet stars
With roaring factories and clanging cars!
Thou builder of machines, who dost not see!
That which thou mad'st to drive, is driving thee--
Ravening, tireless, pitiless its strain
For thy last ounce of work from hand and brain.
Are thy sons princes? Hard-wrung serfs! They give
Toil's utmost dregs for the bare chance to live;
They dig and delve and strive with sweat-cursed brow
In forge and shop. Master? Nay! Thrall art thou!
Fool! Serving, I have slaved thee. Master Fool!
To forge the sword, nor know the sword should rule;
To make the engine, blind that it must lead
Fast and yet faster on the race of greed.
I, Steel, am King--thy king in more than name!
Lo, I am Moloch, crowned and throned in flame,
Holding thee slave by lust of thy desire--
Calling thy first-born to me through the fire!
Commentary
Notes
Tubal-Cain, or Tubalcain, (Tuval Kayin in Hebrew), is a figure in the Book of Genesis, who functions as a culture hero who is credited with the invention of blacksmithing and ironworking. His name means “thou wilt be brought of Cain”, suggesting he is a descendant of Cain.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubal-Cain
I really enjoyed discovering today’s poem, all the more so since it is a style of poetry that has fallen out of fashion. The trouble with grand, dramatic poems like this is that they are all too easy to get wrong, and one slip can leave them ridiculous rather than stirring. Indeed, one of the easiest targets to parody in deliberate bad poetry is the misuse of lines like “Lo, I am Moloch, crowned and throned in flame” in a poem in which they are clearly inappropriate.
Which makes it all the more a pleasure to see a poem that gets it right, one in which the overly intense tone and imagery are precisely right for what the poet wishes to convey. This is not a subtle poem, but it doesn’t need to be - Going clearly wants to deliver a Message, and he does so unapologetically. And the interesting thing is, despite the poem’s slightly dated feel, the subject matter is as relevant as ever.
— Martin