THE EGG AND THE MACHINE

He gave the solid rail a hateful kick.

From far away there came an answering tick; 

And then another tick. He knew the code:

His hate had roused an engine up the road.

He wished when he had had the track alone

He had attacked it with a club or stone

And bent some rail wide. open like a switch 

So as to wreck the engine in the ditch.

Too late, though, now to throw it down the bank;

 Its click was rising to a nearer clank.

Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.

(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)

 Then for a moment there was only size, 

Confusion, and a roar that drowned the cries

He raised against the gods in the machine. 

Then once again the sand-hank lay serene. 

The traveler's eye picked up a turtle trail, 

Between the dotted feet a streak of tail,

And followed it to where he made out vague, 

But certain signs of buried turtle egg;

And probing with one finger not too rough, 

He found suspicious sand, and sure enough

The pocket of a little turtle mine.      

If there was one egg in it, there were nine,

 Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather

All packed in sand to wait the trump together. 

"You'd "better not disturb me any more,"

He told the distance. "I am armed for war.

 The next machine that has the power to pass 

Will get this plasm in its goggle glass."