Up the furnace door was lifted,
And the searching glare shot out,
Lighting up the dusky rafters,
And the alleys round about;
Shining on the workmen's faces
In the twilight ghastly pale,
As the joyful sun at noonday
Burns above the torrid vale.
Now the heated mass of metal,
Hoisted by the creaking crane,
Slowly leaves the smoking furnace
And the door descends again;
While a molten liquid torrent,
Running from the blazing ore,
Like a fiery, hissing serpent,
Writhes along the iron floor,
As the crane swings, and the pulley,
And the chain jolts to and fro,
Till the blinding mass is ready
For the grave and plastic blow.
"Ready now"? "Aye! all is ready."
And the blows begin to pour,
And the rushing sparks and splinters
Rain in torrents on the floor;
Like the stinging shots and pellets
On a soldier's coat of mail,
Or the sharp, skin-piercing volley
Flying in the bitter gale;
While the forger and his helpmates,
With a deft, mechanic skill,
Turn and shape the glowing metal
To the master's cunning will;
To and fro, and back and forward,
Sideways, lengthwise, end to end,
Here, another inch of taper,
There, the radius and the bend;
Till the forgeman gives the signal,
In his eye a spark of pride,
And the hammer stops impulsive,
So the heavy blows subside.
Here the gauges and the trimmer,
All the sizes, one by one;
Cut away the useless porter,
There! the mighty task is done.
Now the merry whoop and laughter
As the hubbub dies away,
Come whatever will to-morrow
We have won the race today.
Although he later wrote a whole book of prose about his experiences of his employment in Swindon's GWR Works, called Life in a Railway Factory, Alfred only wrote a few poems about it. This is clearly one of them, and compares with the (presumably) later poem, The Furnaceman, and also The Oil Furnace.
Poems index
Alphabetical list of poems online
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