Explore "The Word of an Engineer" by James Weldon Johnson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"She's built of steel / From deck to keel, / And bolted strong and tight;
In scorn she'll sail / The fiercest gale, / And pierce the darkest night.
"The builder's art / Has proved each part / Throughout her breadth and length;
Deep in the hulk, / Of her mighty bulk, / Ten thousand Titans' strength."
The tempest howls, / The Ice Wolf prowls, / The winds they shift and veer, / But calm I sleep, / And faith I keep / In the word of an engineer.
Along the trail / Of the slender rail / The train, like a nightmare, flies / And dashes on / Through the black-mouthed yawn / Where the cavernous tunnel lies.
Over the ridge, / Across the bridge, / Swung twixt the sky and hell, / On an iron thread / Spun from the head / Of the man in a draughtsman's cell.
And so we ride / Over land and tide, / Without a thought of fear --
Man never had / The faith in God / That he has in an engineer!