Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/120

 104 OTWAY CURRY. [1830-40. EXTRACTS FROM THE "LORE OF THE PAST."* Earth has no voice of solemn-sounding chime But wakes some memory of the brows that wore The crowning impress of immortal thought, And eloquent lips, whose thrilling tones were caught By listening nations ; caught from age to age, And joyfully on many a during page Engraven all: through every change un- quelled Their spirit strove, unceasingly impelled By the quick impulse of unsleeping zeal To grasp the hoary infinite, — to unseal The hidden mysteries of eternal space ; The footsteps of Omnipotence to trace Through untold periods, back Along that shadowy and eternal track, Where first the grand and solemn music rang Of worlds that from the womb of primal chaos sprang. The wondrous laws that force The winging winds along their viewless course ; That prompt the furrows of the teeming field The treasures of the waving corn to yield ; And, when the summer sunshine inter- weaves Its golden hues among the forest leaves, Suspend the fruitage and the bloomy gems In quivering brightness on the pensile stems ; That strew with glittering ore the caves pi'ofound. Hanover College, Indiana, at its Fifth Anniversary, Sep- tember, 1837 — published by the Society — dedicated by the author to William D. Gallagher, "as a memeuto of early and enduring friendship." And jeweled mansions of the under ground, And quickening breath to myriad tribes bestow. Whose life and motion in the regions grow. Whereon the waves of time like eddying waters flow: All, all are mingled in that changeful lore, Whose fame is deathless, but whose hope is o'er : — Fond hope, to purify the toiling mind And work the lasting weal of human kind. Forgetful of the ills and wrongs that w4nd And clog the spirit in its upward flight — Forgetful that the unassisted might Of science never yet on earthly ground The priceless meed of happiness hath found. In other days there came A Herald to the sons of men, whose name Was sung by sei'aphs with their harps of gold In the high heavens of old. He gave to life a balm for all its ills — He soothed the mourner with his voice divine ; And there was gladness in the fountain rills. And peerless beauty on the rocky hills Of palmy Palestine. He taught the struggling toiler for the prize Of undecaying happiness, above The groveling strife of passion to arise, And with the angel-ministry of love. And the bland light of virtue to adorn The pathway of the traveler to that bourn Wliere Science, radiant as the early dawn, Reposes with her starred and heavenly plumage on. Through every land and sea, Even as the unregarded breezes flee. That precept of immortal truth was borne Amidst the pi-ide and scorn And turmoil of a world that would not learn : A world whose every clime Ambition stern
 * A poem delivered before the Union Literary Society of