Wheels

Living so near to Blists Hill, I love the industrial revolution reference in this poem:
Blists Hill Victorian Town 

A molten-mouthed dragon, when I was a lad,
Out of its flaming belly spat me this ingot,
'Mid the whirr of conveyor-belts, the clang of steam hammers,
The screech of drills, the scrawtch of the millers:
"While yet there is time, learn, boy, from the steel,
Wherever or what, thrums wheel within wheel."

The leviathans, labouring through fluming seas,
To the throb of the engines, the menace me told;
Their shuddering flanks screamed the dictum to me,
As, tempestuously driven, they staggered and rolled:
"Would you know the secret of our forging keels?
Behold, child, and marvel, at our wheels within wheels."


Thund'ring and thrusting through smoke-sated fog,
An impetuous train the augury shrieked;
Plunging and snorting, like a frenzied god,
Ravenous for distance, it clamoured and belched:
"If warning you'd have in your utmost speed,
Remember, when and wherever, that, wheels within wheels,
Are tightly keyed!"


In the depth of the night, when the elements warred,
O'er the roar of ravine and the crash of the shard,
Of the down-tumbling sky in a vortex reel,
Valkyries, riding, the law hallooed to me:
"Know now, and forever, turns wheel within wheel!"


As I sat alone, in reverie rapt,
A spider came ticking an ominous lay:
When weary of seeking him, I resignedly sat,
 To endure him in patience, he tic-tic-a-tacked:
"If ought there to be, human you hold fondly dear,
Hark! Wheels within wheels. Be guarded, and hear!"