This weaver’s son from Fife
Aged 13 was a little bobbin boy
Changing spools of thread in a Pittsburgh mill
A pocket dynamo, he flashed through coloured skeins
Of rainbow threads, a lightning hummingbird
The hummingbird likes certain curious flowers
The bouncing bet, the jewel weed amongst them
But this particular bird liked books as well
This rags to riches lad o pairts loved learning.
A constant borrower from libraries
He sipped the nectar of knowledge on the wing
From weaver’s hut in Fife, to Caisteal Sgiobail
Gaelic for Fairyland, the world of myth
The King of Steel migrated back and fore
Across the ocean, bearing the fruits of his labour
The Aztecs valued hummingbirds as talismen
Emblem of vigour, energy and work. This sturdy
Fife-born speciman, his earthly travails over,
Roosts now beneath a simple Celtic cross
Rockefeller, Astor, lie nearby him,
Washington Irving, Chrysler, all now grass
Even tycoons, like summer storms, soon pass.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem