by John C. Trautwine
Oh, big brother "Low" in
the wild wooly West,
How goes it
with you? I am doing my best
To serve jealous
Zeus with ginger and zest.
But sad is our lot, now
that the wireless is here;
They're "on
to our curves," be it stormy or clear,
Oh, Jupiter
Pluvius, shed a large tear!
In the good days of old
when the world was all free,
We dash's
thousands of innocents into the sea;
But now with
the wireless such things can not be.
I passed the Bahamas; the
Gulf Stream I crossed,
You come from
Saskatchewan, whitened with frost,
We joined
hands together - e'en so we are lost.
For what can we do when
man's voice is so strong,
And his eyes
see so far, and his ears are so long?
We clumsy
old storms can but blunder along.
We twist or we turn, we
diminish or grow,
We back or
go forward, we rain or we blow;
But they know
what we're up to each time, even so.
For the Captain he goes
to the speaking tube near,
And whistles
for "Wireless" to lend him his ear;
"Say, boy,
watch that tropical storm, will you? Hear?"
"Ay, ay, sir,"says Bill
and five minutes to ten
He tunes up
for Arlington, listens - and then
He writes
it down thus in his tight little den -
"Advisory storm warning
issued to-night,
With signals
from Tampa to Nantucket Light,
Disturbance
increasing - storm not at its height;
"Moving swiftly from Florida
north by northeast,
Is a dangerous
storm and the winds have increast,
And shipping
is warned to be cautious at least."
So Billy reported it all
to the "cap;"
"Oh, ho,"
says the Captain, I don't give a rap
For a storm
I can watch clear across the whole map!
"I'm going to bunk now,"
says Captain to Mate,
"Just steer
a bit west, and run a bit late;
We can make
for Bar Harbor, and there we can wait."
And the tale of this ship's
not unique - "believe me,"
It happens
aboard scores of ships on the sea
That are fitted
with wireless - to foil you and me.
And so it goes on, every
night, every day;
The vessels
just scamper clear out of our way -
Can't even
get near them - it's useless, I say.
For what can we do when
man's voice is so strong,
And his eyes
see so far, and his ears are so long?
Alas! We poor
storms can but blunder along.
We twist or we turn, we
diminish or grow,
We back or
go forward, we rain or we blow;
But they know
what we're up to each time, even so.
Mr. John C. Trautwine,
a civil engineer of Philadelphia, Pa., and well known as the author
of the Civil Engineer's Pocket Book, has a wireless receiving station
which he uses merely as a personal diversion and pastime. One night
recently, after receiving a hurricane warning issued by the Weather
Bureau and sent out by the Government radio plant at Arlington, Va.,
he was prompted to write the above lines. [In: Weather Bureau Topics
and Personnel, October 1916, pp. 7-8.]
