heronshaw, whom the princely Dane knew from a hawk, when the wind was nor-nor-west.
WILD ROSES BY THE RIVER GROW
Wild roses by the river grow,
And lilies by the stream,
And there I pulled the blossoms fair
In young love’s happy dream.
The lilies bent upon the stem
In many a graceful twine,
But lighter was the slender form
Of her I dreamed was mine.
The wilding-rose hath fairer hues
Than other flowers have known,
But lovelier tints were on the cheek
Of her I called mine own.
I pulled my love the wilding-rose,
The lily-bell so frail,
Sudden the flowers were scattered far,
Reft by the envious gale.
So from my life was reft away
Love’s flower; I dwell alone,
Far severed by relentless fate
From her I called mine own.
Still by the river blooms the rose,
The lily by the stream,
I pull no more the blossoms fair,
Fled is love’s happy dream.
THE SONG-STREAM
“My right to love, and thine to know,
The life-stream, in its seaward flow,
Glides, chainless, ’neath the drifted snow.”
Wherever it listeth the free-born wind bloweth:
Wherever it willeth the stream of song floweth:
It revels in twin-light – its lone threads run single;
It passeth calm seas with wild Caspians to mingle.
If blest with true life-mate, in roughest of weather,
They join their glad voices and rush on together;
If lost in a lake whose fair surface is calmer,
It but hides in its bosom to warble there warmer.
If Spring lay a couch all enameled with flowers,
It lingers, enrapt, with the soft rosy hours,
And lists the wood-birds, and the meek insect-hummer,
Through the soft, growing idless of thought-teeming Summer.
And when Fall strews a carpet of brown o’er the meadow
It rests in the dusk of some mountain’s vast shadow;
Laughs out at the vain who look in for their faces,
For it mirrors great groups of the Nations and Races.
Though the Song-stream must cease all its rich, liquid flowing
When Time’s boreal breath o’er cold icebergs is blowing,
While closed the chill surface its depths who shall number,
Or the beats of its heart through the long polar slumber!
For the stream of true song hath a far-reaching mission;
It but gropeth while here, like sick sleeper in vision;
Or like volatile babe, its first word-lessons taking,
It catches faint glimpse of the vastness awaking.
As whither it listeth the free-born wind bloweth,
Wherever God willeth the true Song-stream floweth:
From all Dead Seas it holdeth its crystal wave single,
Till it riseth from earth with sky-dews to commingle.
MACHINERY, FOR MACHINE MAKING
Of all the leading characteristics of the present age, the most remarkable, and that which is evolving results of the greatest moment, is the general prevalence, and almost universal application of labor-saving machines, of one sort or another, which are gradually but surely bringing about a thorough revolution in all the forms of human industry.
Horse-power, man-power, nay! but almost wind and water power also, are rapidly becoming things almost obsolete and disused; while the giant might of the labor-imprisoned steam is pressed into services the most multifarious and diverse; now speeding the mighty ship with a regularity of time and pace exceeded only, if exceeded, by that of the chronometer; now whirling along, through the ringing grooves of iron, trains, the weight of which must be reckoned not by hundreds nor by thousands, but by tens of thousands of tons, measuring miles by minutes, and almost annihilating time and space; now drilling the smallest eye of the finest needle, turning the most delicate thread of the scarce visible screw, drawing out metallic wires to truly fabulous fineness, or spinning the sea island cottons of the South to threads, beside which the silkiest hair of the softest and most feminine of women waxes apparently to the thickness of a cable.
Henceforth it is apparent that of man, the worker, the skill and the slight, no more the sinews and the sweat, are to be called into requisition; that the head, and not the hand, is to be the chief instrument; that the intellectual and no longer the physical forces are to predominate, even in the merest labor.
To direct, not to wield, the power is henceforth to be the principal duty of the mechanic, even of the lowest grade; and in no respect is the progression, set in movement by the progress of science, more real than in this – that increased intelligence, increased capacity of comprehension, increased application to study, is hourly becoming more and more essential to the working-man of the present and the coming ages.
To be as strong as an elephant and as patient as a camel, with an average intelligence inferior probably to that of either animal, will no longer suffice to the swart smith, who now wields, by simple direction of a small spring or tiny lever, forces ten thousand times superior to any power that could be effected by the mightiest of sledge-hammers swung by the brawniest of human arms.
It is worthy of note, that at all periods, from the first introduction of labor-saving machinery, fears have been entertained, even by scientific men and political economists of high order, that the vast increase of working power would exert an injurious influence against the human worker; as if production were about to outrun demand and consumption, so that there would not in the end be enough of labor to be done to employ those seeking to exercise their industry or ingenuity, and depending on that exercise for the support of themselves and their families. Panics have, moreover, arisen among the workmen of the manufacturing classes, as if the machinery were about to rob them of their daily labor, whence their daily bread; and the consequences have been, especially in the large English manufacturing towns, fearful riots, conflagrations of mills and factories, destruction of much valuable machinery, the ruin of owners and employers, and – as a natural consequence of the cause last named – stagnation in business, deterioration of the laborer’s condition, and actual loss of life.
Now,
