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I Frindsbury, Kent, 1786 Bang! Bang! Tap! Tap-a-tap! Rap! All through the lead and silver Winter days, All through the copper of Autumn hazes. Tap to the red rising sun, Tap to the purple setting sun. Four years pass before the job is done. Two thousand oak trees grown and felled, Two thousand oaks from the hedgerows of the Weald, Sussex had yielded two thousand oaks With huge boles Round which the tape rolls Thirty mortal feet, say the village folks. Two hundred loads of elm and Scottish fir; Planking from Dantzig. My! What timber goes into a ship! Tap! Tap! Two years they have seasoned her ribs on the ways, Tapping, tapping. You can hear, though theres nothing where you gaze. Through the fog down the reaches of the river, The tapping goes on like heart-beats in a fever. The church-bells chime Hours and hours, Dropping days in showers. Bang! Rap! Tap! Go the hammers all the time. | 
