One of our subscribers sent us this poem and there is no name to
it Will the sender please enlighten us? Ed.
Harness me down with your iron bands
Be sure of your curb and rein;
For I scorn the power of your puny
hands
How I laughed as I lay concealed
from sight
For many a countless hour,
At the childish boast of human might
And the pride of human power!
When I saw an army upon the land
A navy upon the seas
Creeping along, a snaillike band
Or waiting the wayward breeze;
When I marked the peasant fairly reel
With the toil which he faintly bore
As he feebly turned the tardy wheel
Or tugged at the weary oar;
When I measured the panting coursers speed
As they bore the law a king decreed
Or the lines of impatient love
I could not but think how the world
would feel
As these were outstripped afar
When I should be bound to the rushing keel
Or chained to the flying car!
Ha, ha, ha! they found me out at last,
They invited me forth at length,
And I rushed to my throne with a
thunder-blast,
And I laughed in my iron strength!
O, then ye saw a wondrous change
On the earth and ocean wide,
Where now my fiery armies range,
Nor wait for wind and tide!
Hurrah, hurrah, the waters o’er
The mountain’s steep decline;
Time-space-have yielded to my power
The world-the world is mine!
The rivers the sun hath earliest
blest,
Or those where his beams decline;
The giant streams of the queenly
west
And the orient floods divine.
The ocean pales where’er I sweep
To hear my strength rejoice,
And the monsters of the briny deep
Cower, trembling at my voice.
I carry the wealth and the lord of
earth,
The thoughts of his God-like mind;
The wind lags after my flying forth
The lightning is left behind.
In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine
My tireless arm doth play,
Where the rocks ne’er saw the sun’s
decline
Or the dawn of the glorious day.
I bring the earth’s glittering jewels up
From the hidden cave below,
And I make the fountain’s granite cup
With a crystal gush o’erflow.
I blow the bellows, I forge the steel
In all the shops of trade;
I hammer the ore and turn the wheel
Where my arms of strength are
made.
I manage the furnace, the mill, the
mint,
I carry, I spin, I weave;
And all my doings I put into print
On every Saturday eve.
I’ve no muscles to weary, no breast
to decay
No bones to be laid on the shelf,
And soon I intend you may go and
play
While I manage this world myself.
But harness me down with your iron
bands
Be sure of your curb and rein;
For I scorn the strength of your puny
hands
As the tempest scorns a chain!
