There is no metal in the metalled roads, But still they’re made of steel – They take the feet and hooves and loads, And the ever-turning wheel. The dust and ruts and highwaymen Were swept away in dale and fen By smooth and fast and tarmacked threads With footed feet and watersheds.
But these have all been laid with stone A century or more – The job is done, the back is bone, The soles are growing sore… We surely now have roads enough To leave the wilds unpaved and rough, And only build our future trails As metalled roads of shining rails.
I write you once again, my love, By paper and by boat. The old-fashioned way’s The only way you’ll ever get my note.
But have you heard, A telegraph now spans between we two ? Is this the modern world, my love, The endless chase for something new ?
Though sometimes, when I think how long We take to send our hearts’ desires, I fancy, on the breeze, that angels sing Along those wires –
Pensmiths, calling pensmiths, What you write today, You’ll get to say tomorrow – Calling pensmiths from across the globe, Your words shall span and probe, This time tomorrow. We shall gladly carry all your distant precious words, The small, the silly and absurd, From off your lips to willing ears – Allying fears that letters reach too slow – Come tomorrow.
It’s hardly for the likes of us, my love, Who must still write – No spark or semaphore will speed These words as fast as light.
I cannot see how just one simple cable Can unite us all. Messages are paper still and boats, For those whose means are small.
And yet, so many weeks until Your next reply can stoke my fires, If only, on the breeze the angels sang Along the wires –
Scribers, calling scribers, What you write today, Shall fly away tomorrow – Calling scribers from across the sea, Your words are bounding free This time tomorrow. We shall gladly carry ev’ry distant precious thought, The playful and the overwrought, That bring their homes to foreign parts, Assuring hearts that letters reach too slow – Come tomorrow.
Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way – That’s four-hundred-eighty transmissions each day – Four-hundred-eighty, and what will they say ?
Good news and bad news and news that can’t wait, Tidings and greetings and offers and meetings, And orders and pledges and threats and debate, Departures, arrivals, and lovers and rivals.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way, Of profits and prices and projects and pay, With no words misspoken or scattered astray.
Old news and new news and news of the world, Battles, elections and plagues and infections, As fast as the lightning, each message is hurled, And back comes each answer – an undersea dancer.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way, Through storm and through snow and through come-all-what-may, With no need to worry and no need to pray.
Peace and good will, they bade – what hath God wrought ? Nation to nation in communication. So is this the peace the philosophers sought ? No need to be shy, just send your reply.
Dits and dahs and dahs and dits, All day, all night, all year, relaying – Reading, sending, hearing, writing, Little bursts of sound and lightning. Letters come in beeps and bits, We do not think of what they’re saying – In they steam without cessation, With no room for punctuation. Tappity, tappity, dit by dah, The pulse of the modern world, they are.
We are the teachers, we are the clerks, The upper working lower middle – Literate, and handling secrets, Tap it, jot it, never speak it. We are the servants of the sparks, Our social standing quite a riddle – Overworked yet fairly paid, We’re not professionals nor trade. Tappity, tappity, ev’ry station, All we move is information.
We’re fishing with hooks For a monster eel – He’s somewhere around here, we know. We’ll scrape in each nook And each crevice with steel, To catch us a live one below.
We’re plumbing the depth With our makeshift prong To land him right out of the wet. He’s only a thumbs-width, But boy, is he long. We’ll fetch him up here with us yet.
He isn’t so slippy When grabbed by his tail – We know where he’s likely to lay. His head may be whippy, His body may flail, But he won’t be wriggling away.
So surface our booty, Our highly-prized freight, He’s more precious than gold by the ton – So haul up our beauty, And haul up his mate, And splice them together as one.
Niagara and Agamemnon – Those were the ships that sailed Paying out the precious flex From wheeling drums upon their decks – Meeting in the middle as they trailed. The cable failed.
The tide comes in, the tide goes out, We have no doubt it will be so – We’ll wait until it turns about For soon the current has to flow.
“Make new lines and load them on The Great Eastern !”, they yelled – “We need the best and largest beast To string the West and thread the East Until the seas and shareholders are quelled.” The cable held.
The tide goes out, the tide comes in, We know the when, we know the why – We cannot hope to stop them, But let’s ride them when they’re high.
Forests gone Stop Trees no more Stop From Formosa down to Singapore They hacked them down Stop Shore to shore Stop Felled them for the precious sap they bore
Send a message Round the globe To spare the trees that let your message probe Stop Send a message In good faith To spare the trees that keep your message safe Stop Send a message To the top Or else some day all messages must Stop
Perished rubber Turns to brittle Gutta-percha won’t degrade a little Latex stretches So does leather Gutta-percha keeps its form forever
Send a message Through the gloam To spare the trees that bring your message home Stop Send a message Dit by dah To spare the trees that speed your message far Stop Send a message Spare the crop Or else some day all messages must Stop
Five thousand miles of cable are ordered from two different firms, Made and delivered in only six months, are the explicit terms. As thick as a forefinger, Kerry to Newfoundland, under the tide – Valentia Island to Heart’s Content Harbour, it spans the divide.
It has to be easily coiled, yet rigid and strong by design, And weigh-in at one ton per mile, for five thousand miles of line. For make it too heavy, and then it gets far too unwieldy to lay, But make it too light, and the currents will catch it and tug it away.
The core of the cable is untainted copper in two-mile lengths – This strand has been plaited from seven pure wires which give it its strength. Then coated three times with refined gutta-percha, then dowsed and immersed In longer and shorter arrangements, to test it and weed out the worst.
And next are the layers of hemp under pitch under tar, tightly bound, Then this is all drawn through a rig where the outer sheath wires are wound – Eighteen quick bobbins with bright charcoal iron strands weave day and night, To wrap thirty miles of cable per day per machine at their height.
The copper and iron in wires in strands in the cable, if strewn In a single long filament, easily stretches from here to the Moon. Then finally, more pitch and tar, and it’s done and it’s set for the deep, So load it onboard and we’ll soon have it working and earning its keep.
For all your sparks and all your dreams, And tinkering in sheds, Without our means, your greatest schemes Would never leave your heads.
Who paid for Archimedes’ tools ? Who built each church and pyramid ? Who funded Oxford’s ancient schools ? I’ll tell you who – we did !
The business of business is building your dream, By priming the pump and by working the seam – Alone, we’re but tepid – together, we’re steam ! So stoke up the pressure And speed up the thresher To reap our returns in the Future’s regime.
To fund savants and engineers, Don’t trust in dons or lords – It’s we who lift your valves and gears From off your drawing boards.
Who built up Caxton, Bacon, Hooke ? The musket and the blunderbuss ? Who floated Cabot, Drake and Cook ? I’ll tell you who – it’s us !
And if we should falter or labour in vain, We’ll swallow our losses and start out again – We’ve plenty of patience to wait out the rain. So get the cogs turning And set the coals burning To forge the brave Future and ride the big train.
Bigger, faster, higher, stronger, Pressures greater, pistons longer, Pumping, thrusting, pulsing, striving, Flywheels spinning, crankshafts driving. I built for you a braver world, A place of pulleys, springs and gears Where fates enmeshed and fortunes swirled Within the palms of engineers. You had the road, you had the wheel, But what you lacked-for was the dream – You brought me rust, I gave you steel – You brought me rain, I gave you steam. For all I did, There’s so much greater, greater that I could’ve done. For all I strode, There’s so much further, further that I could’ve run. For all I built, There’s so much higher, higher that I could’ve got. For all I planned, I was ready, always ready, but the world was not.
Rhyming Couplets 