The Call

The Sea
Sends its call to me, shut within
The four walls of a dusty beated room.
Outside, the clanging rush and groan
Of trams, and the sullen roar
Of the city, as its great heart throbs
With the pulsatings of a million lives.
And I, perched high upon my office stool
Have sent my soul
To the hungry surge
Of the Sea.

Somewhere—is a little friendly bay,
Quite small and very far removed
From men.
And there, softly sounding on the stones
Or snarling round the great raw rocks,
The gulls scream and swoop
To the Sea.

Always she gives, to those who ask,
From her vast depths never does she
Deny those who come to her arms, from the heat
Of towns and the dust of highways.
Creep through the streets with thy coolness
And take my life,
Oh, Sea!

From the heat and the noise and the greyness,
To thy far-stretching, gentle-swelling spaces,
You are kind to the gull and small stone;
Even so—
Be thou kind
To me.

—S. G. Marshall .

Providing for the Future

For the provision of adequate electric power in the future, very elaborate plans have been drawn up by the Swiss railway authorities. Already there is in operation a vast chain of power plants, operated largely by the fast-flowing Swiss rivers, to meet railway needs. Now new sources of supply are being tapped. In association with a large electric power undertaking, the Swiss Government Railways are to build a new hydro-electric works on the River Sihl, in the Canton of Schwyz. Here there will be a reservoir of 1,000 million cubic feet capacity, and a plant of about 110,000 horse power, working under a head of 1,600 feet. Half the cost of the plant will be borne by the railways and half by the power company.