The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1880-08-05
.sThe Echoes of A Hundred Years.''

BY REFORMED BUTTERNTT.
| Come, let us look backward! n hundred years,
Through the whirl and rush of time;
Through the strange mingling of smiles and tears
Ofthe ludcrous and the sublime!
We see the face of the treacherous deep
O'erspread with many SAIL
i While slowly the vessels onward creep,
In the face of the bowling gale.
The-glistening face of the virgin lake,
And the smooth and placid stream,
| We hear the great buckets rudely break
| With the force of resistless steam.
Behold the great steamship, as she flies
Ger the wave, with rushing wheel,
| The strength of five hundred horses lies
In her mighty arms of steel.
| We see the great cumbrous coach retire
We hear monotonous ''clfck,''
| And news flies over long leagues of wire
As though by magic trick.
| Where once the emigraapt wended his way
Ger the long and wearying TRAIL
| We rush. two hundred miles in a day,
| Ger the magic iron rail.
Beneath the deep, DER the oceans sands,
The wire the echo brings,
OF the treacherous shots, by assassin's hands
Aimed at the hearts of kings.
A rumbling sound from distant land
The sound of solemn knell,
And behold, mighty Republic stand
Where tottering Empire fell!
The savage recoils from the deadly strife,
He seeks for better things;
When he hears the tale of the Better Life,
And the joy and peace it brings.
To the lonely haunts of his native wild
The tidings the Mission sends
And the prattlng voice of the Pagan child
With the voice of the Minister blends.
From far to the Eastward ..le echoes come
From the land from sayages won,
OF blaring bugle and rafting drum,
As the Briton marches
From the far ice-felds of the frozen North,
Where the walrus and seal abound;
From the land to which brave Hall went forth,
And grave, untimely, found
There comes the echo of tapping sail,
OF f''sledges' coursng fast,
Where all but the bravest hearts would quail
In the face of the Arctic blast.
The steamer plows half frozen seas,
The colony dots the green,
And slowly the search will advance, by degrees,
Till the long-sought pass is seen.
Away toward the land of the setting sun,
Beyond the great desert plains,
The warlike sound of the sayage's gun
Gives place to more peaceful strains.
Breaking the soft, pure Western air,
Climbing the mountain peaks
Starting the wild beast from his lair,
The tireless engine shrieks.
Up from many a Southern field
Where the fig and the orange grow,
Where the cottonstems bear their bounteous yield,
AS white fields of snow,
Varied echoes are waited along
On the spicy Southern breeze
The glorious notes of the mock-bird's song
Blends with the hum of bees.
The sound of the covering bondman's cry,
Meath the cruel, whistling lash,
Gives place to his praise, ascending high,
AS his fetters fall with crash.
The thunderous roar of a dreadful war
Reyerberates through the land;
Then former foes, bearing many scar,
Meet as brothers, hand in hand.
For the Present the echoes come thick and fast
The factory's Gathering looms,
The song of the farmer with acreage vast,
Where the harvest in beauty blooms,
The church-belrs changing, the school-boys song,
The voice of the statesman wise;
ALI these we hear, rush along,
In deafening discord rise.
Of the many echoes that ear hath heard
In hundred years of time
What tongue can tell them in prosy word,
Or sing them in measured rhyme?
One echo, however, no time, nor freak
Offortune, can change bit:
The Democracy's heart-rending shrek,
As it grabs for the public teat
The lamps of the past burn slowly out
Its banners are being furled;
And we look to the Future to bring about
A better purer world.
One cello succeeding years will bring
With their measures of good and ill:
The wall of that party, stin in the ring
And begging for office still.