Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/333

 THE RAILROAD TRAIN 323

Yet, sooty monster, such alone

Have cause to fear 1 With service fine,

Of all philanthropists, not one Can prove beneficence like thine.

Thou sea to sea, and land to land,

And state to state dost firmly bind ; Through thee shall earth and ocean stand

In a more steadfast friendship joined.

Thou hastenest news of good and ill, And scatterest knowledge in thy flight ;

Through thee shall man's industrious skill Earth's hidden treasures bring to light.

By thee made tame, each jarring race

Its old hostilities shall quell ; Thou shalt subdue both time and space,

And dark delusion's mists dispel.

O swift-winged Messenger, or whether

A thinking or a thoughtless thing, That thus so speedily together

The tribes of all the earth canst bring,

Till through repeated intercourse

Men are more friendly grown each day !

Well may we thank, O iron horse,

The chief who taught thee to obey,—

Who noosed thee in thy native wild, And tamed thy rage with patient skill,

And made thee gentle as a child. The servant of a wiser will.

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