I delve in the mountain's dark recess,
And build my fires in the wilderness;
The red rock crumbles beneath my blast,
While the tall trees tremble and stand aghast;
At the midnight hour my furnace glows,
And the liquid ore in a red stream flows
Till the mountain's heart is melted down,
And seared by fire is its sylvan crown.
Old Cyclops worked in his cavern dire,
To tip the arrows of Jove with fire;
But I in my mountain crevice toil,
And make the rocks in my cauldron boil,
That man may hurl on his fiercest foes,
The iron rain and the sabre blows;
And send on the long and quivering wire
The silent thought, with a wing of fire.
I burn the woods, and I melt the hills,
While the liquid ore from the earth distills,
That over the railroad track may run,
The iron horse to outstrip the Sun;
That ponderous wheels may dash the brine,
And play with monsters of the Line;
While isles of coral seem to be,
But mile-stones placed in the deep blue sea.
When night comes on and the storm is out,
And the rain falls merrily about,
My mountain fires with ruddier glow,
Are seen to burn by the drones below;
And as my merry men pass around,
Their shadows seem on the bright back-ground,
Each like a Vulcan huge and dire,
Forging a thunderbolt of fire.
Richer than Danę's golden rain;
Is the wealth I send to the fertile plain;
The press that gives to the nations light;
The wheel that turns with a thousand's might;
The plough that furrows the fallowed-field;
The sickle that reaps the Harvest's yield;
Are hidden now in that shapeless bloom,
Which I have borne from the Cavern's gloom.
The miser may squander his golden hoard,
And the warrior fall on his bloody sword;
The iron horse may be stiff and chill,
And the wheels of a thousand mills be still;
The steamer may sink on her ocean way,
And the fire refuse on its wire to play;
With me the earth would forget to mourn,
And leap at a blast of my mountain horn.
|