Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/57

 1820-30.] THOMAS PEIRCE, 41 O'er ships and castles leads the wires, And shoots on high the forked spires. The thunder's loud, tremendous crash, The lightning's vivid, fatal flash. Now pass unfeared, innoxious found. And spend their rage beneath the ground. Knowledge is power. — Now calmly sleep The billows of the "vasty deep;" O'er the still fleets no friendly gales Pass lightly by to swell the sails ; Fixed to one spot, they silent ride In useless splendor on the tide ; While many a schooner, keel, and barge. Designed to trace our rivers large, Can scarcely stem the rapid course. With all their sails and oars in force. From dumb oblivion's dreary night Great Fulton rushes forth to light, Conducted by a numerous throng Of arts and sciences along ; And prays the mighty power of Steam To bless his new adventurous scheme. Lo, as he lifts his wand on high. O'er the calm seas the vessels fly With force, rapidity and ease, Unaided by the gentlest breeze ! Or up impetuous rivers glide In spite of currents, wind and tide ! — Whole nations bless the sage sublime. Who triumphs over space and time. Knowledge is power. — Since time began The unrelenting foe of man, The monster, Pest'lence, stalked abroad. By all the powers of health unawed. O'er the broad plains and hills sublime Of Europe's rich and varied clime ; O'er Asia's wide-extended land ; O'er Afric's desert realms of sand ; O'er the vast mountains, vales and plains Where nature in her splendor reigns, E'er since Columbus great unfurled The glories of the Western world ; Through every clime and every zone By man inhabited or known. Far as the boundless ocean rolls. Or land wide-stretches to the poles ; — He marched abroad with giant stride, And death and ruin at his side : Whole nations fell beneath his hand, And desolation ruled the land. Great Jenner, cool and undismayed, With only Science for his aid, Grapples the fiend in deadly fight. And hurls him to eternal night : Wliile all mankind, with loud acclaim, Resound their benefactor's name. Knowledge is power. — By chemic art, Behold the sage MontgoLfier part From water's clear, compounded mass Pure hydrogen's etherial gas ; Urged by whose light, elastic spring The huge balloon, on buoyant whig, Amid the thousands gazing round. Receives the sage, and leaves the ground. Observe the bold Montgolfier rise, League above league, through purer skies : Now a thick mist the globe enshrouds, Now see, it soars above the clouds, Now, faint and fainter, from afar It shines a small, pale-glimmering star ; And now it vanishes from sight; While, from this vast, etherial height, The dauntless sage, the clouds between. Looks down with rapture on the scene ; Where wide around the landscape spreads. And towns and cities lift their heads ; Where to the clouds huge mountains throw Their heads gigantic — white with snow; Where round the globe deep oceans roll. And land extends to either pole. Tired of these wondrous scenes — behold The sage his parachute unfold ; And, loosing quick the cords that bind. His airy castle cleaves the wind, — While he, with safe-descending speed, Now from his heavenward journey freed. The boundless power of knowledge shows, And gains the earth from whence he rose !