Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/139

Within his iron heart comprest,
While strangely from his heaving breast,
The streams of breath, in sparkles dire,
Sprinkled old Midnight's robe with fire.
His sharp, shrill neigh, with terror fills
The cattle on a thousand hills,
As mid their fragrant food they spy
This wingless monster straining by,
Whose brazen nerves and boiling veins
Propel him o'er the lessening plains.

While we, who born in times of old,
When travel from her note-book told
Of rural charms, and lambs that play,
And wild flowers treasured on the way,
We, who in earlier days were fain
To weave the poet’s idle strain,
And gather from the landscape fair
Such thoughts as angels scattered there,
Now ill at ease, with swimming eye,
Go where the fire-horse wills to fly.

Yet thou, sweet stream, whose devious way,
Unconscious woke this simple lay,
We would not quite, in giddy strife,
Forget the moral of thy life.
Thy shaded childhood, meekly fair,
Thy course mature of useful care,