THEY talk of the triumph of the machine,
but the machine will never
triumph.
Out of the thousands and thousands of centuries of
man
the unrolling of
ferns, white tongues of the acanthus lapping
at the sun,
for one sad century
machines have triumphed, rolled
us hither and thither,
shaking the lark’s nest till the eggs have
broken.
Shaken the marshes till the geese have gone
and the wild swans flown away
singing the swan-song of us.
Hard, hard on the earth the machines are
rolling,
but through
some hearts they will never roll.
The lark nests in his heart
and the white swan swims in the marshes of his
loins,
and through
the wide prairies of his breast a young bull herds
the cows,
lambs frisk among the daisies
of his brain.
And at last
all these creatures that cannot die, driven
back
into the
uttermost corners of the soul
will send up the wild cry of
despair.
The trilling lark in a wild despair will trill down from
the sky,
the swan
will beat the waters in rage, white rage of an enraged
swan,
even the lambs
will stretch forth their necks like serpents,
like snakes of hate, against
the man in the machine:
even the shaking white poplar will dazzle like
splinters of glass
against him.
And against this inward revolt of the native creatures
of the soul
mechanical man, in triumph seated upon the seat of his
machine
will be
powerless, for no engine can reach into the marshes
and depths of a
man.
So mechanical man in triumph seated upon the seat of his
machine
will be
driven mad from himself, and sightless, and on that day
the machines will turn to run
into one another
traffic will tangle up in a long-drawn-out crash of
collision
and
engines will rush at the solid houses, the edifice of our
life
will rock in
the shock of the mad machine, and the house will
come down.
Then, far beyond the ruin, in
the far, in the ultimate, remote places
the swan will lift up again his
flattened, smitten head
and look round, and rise, and on the great
vaults of his wings
will sweep round and up to greet the sun with a silky
glitter
of a new
day
and the lark
will follow trilling, angerless again,
and the lambs will bite off the heads of the
daisies for friskiness.
But over the middle of the earth will be the
smoky ruin of iron
the triumph of the machine.