Magnetic Pole, True Pole, Axis of Torque, Axis of Spin

Night that has settled in
On a ship lightless for war
Allows dead reckoning
By the pale compass rose.
Man pulls down no star
After horizon goes,

And steers by binnacle-glow,
The course shown him true
By the whispering spun globe
Of the gyro. Who would trust
Pull of a pole askew,
Old magnets and old rust?

Spun in a mercury pool
The gyro finds out north
Till some momentous fool
Nudges that spin to lie
And the blind world blunders in torque,
Passing old metal by.