The Soul Stithy

My soul, asleep between its body-throes,
Mid leagues of darkness watch’d a furnace glare,
And breastless arms that wrought laborious there,—
Power without plan, wherefrom no purpose grows,—
Welding white metal on a forge with blows,
Whence stream’d the singing sparks like flaming hair,
Which whirling gusts ever abroad would bear:
And still the stithy hammers fell and rose.
And then I knew those sparks were souls of men,
And watch’d them driven like starlets down the wind.
A myriad died and left no trace to tell;
An hour like will-o’-the-wisps some lit the fen;
Now one would leave a trail of fire behind:
And still the stithy-hammers rose and fell.