Page:Poems of home and country (IA poemsofhomecount01smit).pdf/164



In nursery, college, work, fashion, and art;

In country and city, in village and mart;

In trade and mechanics, on land and on sea;

In climes ruled by despots, or ruled by the free;

Where flashes the flame of war's lurid glare;

Where wave the sweet banners of peace on the air;

In tropical heat, in the teeth of the cold,

With the youthful and fair, the wrinkled and old;

In circles polite, with the rough honest seamen;

In London, Berlin, Caffreland, and Van Dieman,

It reigns over all, with a merciless sceptre,

Since Eve took the fruit, 0, had Adam but kept her,

Through grace, this great tyrant one triumph had lost,

And Earth's first temptation no sorrow had cost.

I sing no new theme; everywhere you shall find it:

No force can resist, no fetters can bind it;

No genius of man can command it away;

No strength but must bow, its nod to obey;

No bribe, no condition, can limit the range

Of that power despotic, ubiquitous, - Change!

It comes in our troubles, our bondage to sever;

Without it would toothache be toothache forever.

It rouses, but calms, the wild billows at sea;

It gathers the storm, but compels it to flee;

Wakes daylight from gloom, and purples each ray

That beams in the west at the setting of day;

Spreads carth in the spring with a mantle of pride;

And whitens and jewels it o'er like a bride,

When the nuts have been cracked by the frosts of October,

And beauty autumnal, grown silent and sober,