Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/190

Rh Thy name is mention'd where the merchants meet, And Commerce loves thee well. Yea, thou dost make Much clamour in the world, with thundering crash Of water-wheel, and loom, and steaming smoke From coal-fed chimneys, fusing to the skies With blacken'd breath. Yet mid thy vassal throng Of toiling artisans, 'tis sad to see Such troops of little ones, with pallid cheek, Yielding their joyous birthright at thy shrine, And all sweet intercourse with fields and flowers, That glads the peasant's child. 'Twere hard to count Thy many transmigrations, or to keep Tithe of the dramas where thou dost enact Most changeful parts. Thou in the vessel's hold Dost slumber heavily, in ponderous bales, Like precious ingots, or with winged sail Impel its trackless journey o'er the deep, Or, closely furl'd, embrace the groaning mast That crouches to the tempest. Thou dost stoop, With garment coarse, to wrap the labouring kind, And deck the country-dame in Sunday-gown Of ample-flower'd and many-colour’d chints, Or, slow emerging from the Indian loom, Light as the texture of a dreamy thought, Veil the fair bride, and drape the throned queen. With man thou art when to the dust he goes, And in thy snowy shroud dost fold his brow When friend and lover have forsaken him.

But yet thou hast a higher ministry Of kindliness, and, when thou well hast served