Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1852-05-29
POETR "
From the saturday Evening Poet.
Railroads and Canals,
POETRY NO FICTION.

/
Messieurs Editors i, is more than eighty
wears ago that Darwin wrote
s'soon shall thy power, unconquered Steam
Drag the swift barge and drive the rapid
carr
Joel Barlow wrote his epic poem oil the
nv,sion of Columbus seventy years ago.
In the Paris edition, Book TX. from page
25s 10 263, he portrays "The future progress
of society with respect 10 commerce, discov-
cries, and the opening of canals" From ii
| make the following extracts. The Erie,
Ohio and Illinois canals are foretoid:
uNow round the Welding canopy OF shade,
Again the Guide his heavily power dis
playd.
Far as the angelic Power could lift the eye,
Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky.
Around the chief in fair expansion rise,
Aud ear,h's whole circuit bounds the ieveld
skies
The Hero look'd beneath his wond'ring
eyes
Bright streams leng,hen round the seas and
skies
The countless nations open all their stores,
The sails, in mingllng mazes sweep the air,
And commerce triumphs DER the rage OF
war.n
tsln distant glory, where the watery way
Spreads the blue borders of descending day,
Unfolding flags rom every current sweep,
Pride of the world and daughters Of the
deep.
From arctic heavns, and deep in southern
skies,
Where frost receles as blooms of culture
Where eastern Amurs length'ning curren,
glides,
Where California breaks the billowy tides
Peruvian streams their golden margins boas
And spreading Chill leads the channeFc
coast,
The pinions swell till all the cloudlikt
train,
From pole 10 pole, o'ershades the whtenin:
main.
He saw, as widely spread the unchannelet
plain,
Where inland realms for ages bloomed i
vain,
Canals long winding, ope a weary niah',
Ans distant streams, and seas, and lake
unite,
Where Darien's hills oerlook the gulph
tide,
By human art the ridgy banks divide
Ascending sails the opening pass pursue,
And watt the sparkling treasures of Peru.
Janeiro's stream from Plata winds its way,
Madeira greets the waves of Paraguay,
From rich Albania, tower'd the falling SUI
Back hro' the midland numerous channe
run,
Meet the far lakes their beau,eous tow
that lave,
And Hudson Join TO broad Ohio's wave.
From dim Superior, whose unfathomed sc
Drinks the mild sunbeams of the set,in
day,
New paths unfolding, lead their water
pride,
And town and empires rise along the
side;
To Misssippi's source the passes bend,
And 10 the broad Pacific main extend"
The prediction Of Darwin relative 10 raj
ways is not more singular than the descriI
tion by Barlow of the Erie, Ohio, the WI
bash, and Illinois canals. Barlow's Poet
written, he states, page 256, "prevous
the late war," (meaning the Revoution,)
remarkable production. He has ceriainl
the right with General Washington and Gel
eral Schuyler, TO claim the paternity of II
Erie canal
Fulton, you may recollect, adopted Da
wins idea in the "Lady Clinton Barge" a
tached to his first experiments in steam
the North River. But am admonished n
10 trespass further on the value of your &C
umns, further than TO mention that Col.
Stevens, of Hosoken, said, in 1911:
should not be surprised at seeing steam CT
riages propeller at the rate Of forty and fiji
miles per hour, and can see nothing 10 hi
der one from moving on these ways wi
the velocity of one hundred miles an hol
S E. B.