[xoxoxoBruce]

Technical World Magazine, Feb 1909

THE BUILDERS
By S.E. Kiser

We trust a hundred times a day to bolts and bars and chains
As fearlessly we hurry forth in eager search of gains;
We go by anxious thousands to unfinished tasks or new,
Where each danger might be trebled by a faulty nut or screw;
So let their work be flawless who design and forge and build,
Lest faith be shamefully destroyed and blood be dearly spilled.

We are but soldiers, going where our duties bid us go,
We may not pause to choose the ways, but trusting, high and low,
That gleaming rails and whirring wheels and flashing cranks are free
From faults that careless hands might leave or slovens fail to see,
We travel forth to do our best, each in his ordered way,
With faith that it were well to guard and shameful to betray.

They that design and they that forge, they that direct and build,
They that perform the pregnant tasks allotted to the skilled,
They have us in their keeping, ’tis to them we owe at night
Our freedom from disaster and the strength that brings delight,
So let their work be fairly done, that we, plunged in the stress,
May keep the faith ’twere shameful to betray through carelessness!