A Trial Run

I said to myself almost in prayer,

It will start hair raising currents of air

When you give it the livid metal-sap.

It will make a homicidal roar.

It will shake its cast stone reef of floor.

It will gather speed till your nerves prepare

To hear it wreck in a thunder-clap.

But stand your ground

As they say in war.

It is cotter-pinned, it is bedded true.

Everything its parts can do

Has been thought out and accounted for.

Your least touch sets it going round,

And when to stop it rests with you.