Night Fires

We came into Pittsburgh at night

Over trestles of steel,

And our path was red with the light

Of fires that we could not feel.

Out of the granite and ice

Of the Alleghenies we came.

The whistle sounded twice

And the sky reeled with flame.

Oven doors swung back

Vomiting smoke and ashes.

Men, sweating and black,

Bowed to the unseen lashes.

These are the steel-makers,

Giants bound and bitter.

They swarm in their seething acres

Like night's own litter.

They beat their shining spoil

From the earth's cold languor,

They live in flame, they toil

Molten with anger.