Carroll free press. [volume] (Carrollton [Ohio]) 1834-1861, 1843-01-20
From the "FOrget,me Not" for lS43.
TIE PRESS.
A POem-BY MONTGOMERY.


The oracle of oraces,
Past, present, future, reveal,
Or in obIivous silence seal:
What preserve can perish never--
What lorego is lost for ever.
speak all languages; by me
The deaf may hear, the blind may see,
The dumb converse, the dead Of old
Communion with the living hold.
All lands are one beneath my rule,
All nations learners in my school;
Men Of all ages every where
Become contemporaries there.
What is the Press9 IT'S what the tongue
Was to the world when Time was young;
When by tradiuon, sire to son
Convey'd whale'er was known or done
But fact and fiction so were mlx'd,
Their boundaries never could be tix'd.
What is the Press? IT'S that which
taught,
BY hieroglyphic forms Of thought,
Lore, from the vulgar proudly hid,
Like treasures 10 pyramid;
For knowledge then was mystery,
A captive under lock and key,
BY priests and princes held in thraII,
OF liue use, or none al all,
Till the redoubled ALPHABET
Free their own great deIlverers set
At whose command by simplest spells,
They work their mental miracles,
What is the PressH 'Tis what the Pen
Was thrice ten centuries TO men,
When sybll.leaves lent wings 10 words,
Or Gagged in books they sang like birds
But slow the pen and frail the page
To write twelve (oIos ask'd an age;
And pet babe in sport might spoil
The fruits Of twenty authors Ioil.
A power was wanting 10 ensure
Lille to works worthy to endure;
A power the race 10 multiply
or intellectual polypi:
Il came, all hardships to redress;
And truth and virtue hail'd the Press.
What am then? | am power
Years cannot waste, nor flames devour
Nor waters drown, nor tyrants bind;
am the mirror of mans mind,
In whose serene, impasslve face
What cannot die on earth you trace
Not phantom shapes that come and fly
But like The concave of the sky,
In which the stars by night and day,
Seen or unseen hold on their way.
Then think me not the liVeless frame,
Which bears my honorable name:
Nor dwell in the arm, whose swing
Intelligence from blocks can wiring;
Nor 10 the hand, whose fingers fine
The common characters combine;
Nor even the cogitatIve brain,
Whose cells the germs Of thought COT
tain.
Which that quick hand u letter sows,
Like dibbIed wheat, in lneal rows;
And that strong arm, like autumn
sheaves,
Roaps and binds up in gather'd leaves
The harvest home oil learned toll
From lha! dead frames wellCulture
soil
] am not one, nor all Of these;
They are my types and images,
The instruments with which work;
In them no secret virtue lurk.
y am an omnlpresent soul;
] live and move throughout the whole
And thence, with freedom unconfned,
And universal as the wind,
Whose source and issues are unknow
Felt in its airy flight alone,
All life supplying with lis breath,
] quicken souls from Natures sIoth,
Fashion their forms, sustain tht
growth,
And when my influence fails OF flies,
Matter may live, but spirit dies.
Myself withdrawn from mortal sight,
! am as invisible as light
Light which revealing all beside,
llseIl within itself can hide;
The things Of darkness make bare,
And nowhere, seen, am everywhere,
All that philosophy has sought,
Science discovered, genius wrought;
All that reflective memory stores,
Or rich imagination pours;
All that the wit Of man conceves;
Alllhat he wishes, hopes, believes;
All that he loves, or fears, or hates;
All that TO heaven or earth relates:
These are the lessons thaI teach,
BY speaking silence, silent speech.
Ah!who like me can bless or curse?