Contents | December 2002

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.


The Atlantic Monthly | December 2002
 
The Launching Chains of
The Great Eastern
(By Robert Howlett, 1857)

by John Spaulding
 
 .....
 
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 A waterfall of black chains
looms behind the man in the stovepipe hat.
Cigar. Wrinkled clothes. This is
Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Who could not stop working. Slept
and ate at the shipyard.
The largest ship in the world.
Driven to outdo himself.
Fashioned from iron plate and
powered by three separate means.
Able to sail to Ceylon and back
without refueling. Fated
to lay the Atlantic cable, the India cable.
Untouched in size for forty years.
The Great Leviathan. The Little Giant,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Builder of tunnels, ships, railroads, bridges.
Engineer and Genius of England.
He should have built churches, you know.
Everything he prayed for came true.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Photograph from the National Portrait Gallery, London


What do you think? Discuss this poem in Post & Riposte.
John Spaulding's poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Poetry and The Iowa Review. Walking in Stone (1989) is his most recent collection of poems.
Photograph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by Robert Howlett.

Copyright © 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; December 2002; The Launching Chains of The Great Eastern; Volume 290, No. 5; 122.