Robert Burrows

“It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung; It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs; Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung; It glared around with fierce electric eyes. Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more; It looked like some great monster in the gloom.””

“If I can with confidence sayThat still for another day,Or even another year,I will be there for you, my dear,It will be because, though smallAs measured against the All,I have been so instinctively thoroughAbout my crevice and burrow.””

“Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willedArmies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,Man, brute, reptile, fly,”