Written in honour of the 100th anniversary of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer in 2024.

The engineers who ruled a younger age
Had visions of a bridge of peerless span;
They set their grand designs upon the page
And called their work the greatest work of man.
The builders took the plans and took them far;
The toll of steel and iron grew too great.
The iron bent; the bridge became a scar,
The cost of human life a brutal weight.
The lesson was a sober one, and dear:
The duty of an engineer is clear.

The cautious builder therefore must take care
To balance lofty dreams with oversight,
Just as the engineer must be aware
That execution varies in its might.
The roadways or the rockets or the gears
Are but one part of what makes up the trade:
Let reason be the watchword of your years;
Think patiently on how your drafts are weighed.
With passion and discernment intertwined
The greatest works have always been designed.

Seek counsel from your fellows in the field;
Take modesty and prudence as your guide;
If called upon to bend, know how to yield
And learn to lay your ego to the side.
Yet neither can you let your courage fail,
Nor bow when intuition would you heed:
When standing on conviction do not quail;
When safety is at stake do not concede.
Give help when others ask you for your aid:
Remember this is how the bridge is made.

Disaster cannot shake you from your art,
No matter how severely cut your scars,
So rise again and learn to do your part
To build the bridge that takes us to the stars.
The nature of ambition is to soar,
So take the careful measure of your plans,
Then measure them again, and then once more
To know that you may keep them well in hand.
It’s by your dreams you’ll come to find your place
Through marrying your science and your grace.

So build our dreams together, engineers,
All conscious of the office you command,
And never let yourself give in to fear,
And always you must seek to understand:
For you who do the work preserve us all
Through all the trials you face and all your cares;
Take up the torch and heed the inner call
Of legacy to which you are the heirs.
The perfect mathematics yet awaits
To engineer the futures you’ll create.