The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-09-19
THE SOUTHERN PRESS.


FIR tho Sosakke,1l Press
IRON HIME0s
BY A. y. REaUIER.
There is block Of iron hung
In the dim towers Of Time,
Which, when its brazeu bells are rung,
Peals portentious chime
Alaum Of the monster-birth
O'er empires wrecked and riven,
II swings, to ring out wrong from earth,
And ring down right from Heaven
lii the sad moonlight of the past
Crepuscular il stands,
And DER the waste Of things outcast
Stretches its gloomy hands;
Athwart its face are map-like blent:
Traces of blood and tears,
And its colossal form seems hent.
Under cloud Of years.
The histories of trampled man
Are wrought about its base,
Which frowningly declareth when
They fell into disgrace;
Accused Of fate--their craven forms
Withered and whitening lie,
Dismantled like the drifts of storms,
And shocking to the eye.
Wretches, who Rugged the rusted chain,
Who covered, cringed and bowed,
Nor dared to speak in maner strain
And tell their griefs aloud;
Slaves who were born to breathe and die,
Hiding the stripes they bore,
And, never once, invoked the sky
To damn the prison door.
Slaves of the heart, the head, the hands,
Encrusted in the core;
Who blessed the ignominious bands
And rapturously wore
Its links that eat the flesh and kill
All nobleness Of soul
With blood that never felt thrill
In its insensate hole.
For them the horologe hath rung
The saddest Of its chimes
And round its hoary frame hath flung
Grim tablets of their times
Der these its neither hand is stretched
In token Of their stains,
To the young nations yet unmeshed
BY stratagem or chains.
Look to the loftiest shade and see
The circuit it surveys
A disk Of blood and tears, an me,
But radiant with rays;
Lit with glory not of morn,
Moon, stars--nor pearl, nor stone
But with the glory of men born
To hold on to their own.
The glory of the Roman arm
That struck tyrant down,
When his quick blood beat proudly warm,
Under the purple gown
The glory Of the deathless few
Whose fame survives race,
And of the later Greek who threw
His life blood on its face.
OfTimoleon and Bruce--of Tell
Of Washington--whose grave
Hath tolled anever-ceasing knell
To potentate and slave
OF those who dared to love the right
More than they feared the wrong,
And glow-the star-enkindled night
or chivalry and song
Look to it well, grave Senator'S,
Who sit upon this land,
Look TO the clock Of woes and wars
a With its prophetic hand;
The ship Of State is good craft,
AS staunch as craft can be,
But storm may thunder on its mast
And sink it in the sea !!
LOOK 10 IL Wel--tnere is shade
Upon it's troubled face,
And deeper now CLEAN the tints made
BY every fearful trace;
Sad brows are bending on US there,
From the discolored past,
And something darkens the noon air
Which moaneth in the blast.
The ship Of State is good craft,
AS staunch as craft can be,
But a storm may thunder on its mast
And sink it in the sea-
And woe to them who tread its deck
With parricidal hands,
To drive it dismembered wreck
Upon the shoals and sands.
There is a sound of brazen BELLS
A strange, mysterious chime,
Which, ever and anon, upswells
From the dim towers of Time;
A sound portentous il may be
Of some impending woe
God help the good ship on the sea
Tho the North-easter s blow