A ROAR of smoke from the iron stack That frights the ghosts of the haunted Hollow; A churn of foam, and a broadening track For all the fleets of the world to follow. She asks no aid of the swollen sail; Her engines pant and her timbers quiver; She lifts her bows to the northern gale And breasts the tide of the lordly river. The round-eyed host at his tavern door Lets fall the pipe and the frothing flagon; The brown-winged sloops of the Tappan shore Make frightened way for the snorting dragon. The scythe-men group and the binders flock To gaze in awe at the floating wonder; The red deer stamps on the basalt rock And bounds away to the Hill of Thunder. A fabled road to the far Cathay Old Hudson sought through our western Highlands; But here's the key to a shorter way Through all the seas to the farthest islands. The Craftsman's hand and the Thinker's dream Shall bind the lands with a shortening tether; The wit of Man and the might of Steam Shall draw the rims of the world together. A roar of smoke from her iron stack That frights old ghosts from the haunted Hollow; A churn of foam, and a broadening track For all the fleets of the world to follow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEPPO: A VENETIAN STORY by GEORGE GORDON BYRON CHRISMUS IS A-COMIN' by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR FESTOONS OF FISHES by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES by WALT WHITMAN ACHIEVEMENT'S SILVER CRY by MARGARETE ROSE AKIN THE PEACE: TO HEAVEN ON A BEETLE by ARISTOPHANES TO MY FRIEND MR. THOMAS FLATMAN, ON THE PUBLISHING OF THESE HIS POEMS by FRANCIS BARNARD (D. 1698) |