Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1874-07-09

Well may the bard forego his song,
The seer from naDuntaln-top descend:
The Man Of News-tO him the times belong,
And TO his mastery bend.
The modern epic to its unguessed end
Grows under his prosaic pen
What shall escape his sweeping ken
The hamlet's gossip, the great towns uproar,
And all the loud report OF men,
The light tick of his dropping type resounds again
And fash the torch in darkest hooks of earth,
Through the great grosning lazar-house OF life,
Or dens of sweltering death he goes,
And their black secret shows.
-he ceaseess. armed tramp of human woes,
Fantastic Mosques of crime, the strife
OF vulture passion, honor's dearth
And virtues sad decay,
Council of friends and plot of foes,
With all that courts or shuns the day,
These must his merciess lens expose,
His portrait of the time display.
His. open-spread and bare.
Full in the public light and air,
Tie good and i'll alike 10 lay;
That, happy in the days broad eye,
The social rose may flourish fair,
The deadly magistrates die.
wizard he, his sheet magic glass,
Wherein the mirrored world doth shine,
And all its diverse eLergies
In hurrying throngs approach and PASS,
Appear and disappear,
Weaving q web of texture fine
From verge to verge Of farthest alien skies;
Till far and foreign are brought near,
And myriad threads of destiny intertwine,
And ever to the ear,
In gusts up-blown from every shore and cline,
The multitudinous voices. blent yet clear,
OF the vast surging earth, the din
OF traffic, the 'cy sOugh OF signs,
The laughter ana the cries
OF may peoples, and the roar of time;
And 10 humanity, dismembered, married
OF visage, comes, looks wondering in
And Sees despite the stain of sin,
And features battle-scarred-
And cruel woes endured beneath the sum-
Her face still bears the mold OF the divine,
sfr1,~x al IA
The plastic time takes ever-changing forms.
The age is past WI N one compelling mind
Could sway the armies of mankind,
And lead their dumb, obedient swarms
To conquest OF ideal lands.
The mighty captains of the race
Sleep in their storied tombs nor rule again
Heroes OF sword, or word, or pen
With power to loose and bind.
But in broader, freer space
The circle of the world expands,
And, breaking immemoriai bands,
The conscious peoples rush apace!
To blend in vast commonweal of men.
In the new order thus to be,
No priestly power supreme to blight or bless,
No despot leader she,
The Tenth-our Modern Muse-the Press!
Hers not in her owl. thinking to be great,
But rather to keep free
The channels of the people thought,
And be the voice and conscience OF the State;
Setting gauge whereby the State may see
How in their seetning caverns papitate
The pent volcanic forces Of its fate
But not the less her service shall be fraught
With active and blessing, and confer
A sacred ONCE on her minister.
His, where the springs Of public virtue run,
To watch and keep their current pure an
strong;
With hand alert, to scourge the wrong
And give the good deed to the sun;
The saving wo.d, the larger creed,
To speak, and IN the speaking, speed;
To preach with pen of ire
Mems politics " and Gods justice shall be one;
And this fallen word redeem
To heights of its old meaning from the mire.
Not his the prophets dream,
Or spell of power the nations to ms ire;
But, watcher of the seasons, to proclaim
What signs portentous of the future flame,
And in the orient of the worlds desire
What newborn stars arise.
Or. like some knau, he who plies
the chise with swift patient hands,
And shapes the plan a greater hath designed.
The rugged marble fronts him, and behind
The invisible Master stands,
To whom alone
The secret Of the block is known.
The time Is long, the watchers eyes wax blind,
And weary Is the worker, toiling dumb;
But at the last, before him there is grown
figure of the fairer Age to come!
The image OF the Masters mind,
Girt with Beauty perfect zone,
Looms living from the stone!