Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/410

 394 FRANCES D. GAGE. [1810-50. strongly humanitarian and reformatory, and very many of her most spirited writings are in behalf of these objects.- Her perfect intimacy with nature and her searching observation of common things, enables her to depict beauties and excellences from the most homely topics, which startle by their fidelity and charm by their simplicity, revealing their author to be, emphatically, a Woman of the People ; for which reason her poems should be judged by the thermometer of popular appreciation, rather than by the severer tests of abstract criticism, — a tribunal to which, from the scantiness of her early education and the independence of cultivated habits, she is not fairly ame- nable. THE SOUNDS OF INDUSTRY. I LOVE the banging hammer. The whirring of the plane. The crashing of the busy saw, The creaking of the crane, The ringing of the anvil, The grating of the drill, T"'he clattering of the turning-lathe, The whii-ling of the mill, The buzzing of the spindle, The rattling of the loom. The puffing of the engine. And the fan's continuous boom — The clipping of the tailor's shears. The driving of the awl, — The sounds of busy labor, I love, I love them all, I love the plowman's whistle. The reaper's cheerful song. The drover's oft-repeated shout, As he spurs his stock along ; The bustle of the market-man. As he hies him to the town ; The halloo from the tree-top As the ripened fruit comes down ; Tiie busy sound of threshers As they clean the ripened grain. And the buskers' joke and mirth and glee 'Neatli the moonlight on the plain. The kind voice of the dairyman, The shepherd's gentle call — These sounds of active industry, I love, I love them all ; For they tell my longing spirit Of the earnestness of life, How much of all its happiness Comes out of toil and strife — Not that toil and strife that fainteth, And murmureth all the way, — Not the toil and strife that gi'oaneth Beneath a tyrant's sway : But the toil and strife that springeth From a free and willing heart, A strife which ever bringeth To the striver all his part. Oh ! there is a good in labor. If we labor but aright, That gives vigor to the day-time, And a sweeter sleep at night ; A good that bringeth pleasure. Even to the toiling hours — For duty cheers the spirit As the dew revives the flowers. Oh ! say not that Jehovah Bade us labor as a doom. No, it is his richest mercy. And will scatter half life's gloom. Then let us still be doing Whate'er we find to do — With an earnest, willing spirit, And a stronij hand free and true.