University of Virginia Library

PART II.

1.

2.

How that bronze tube, round which erewhile
This discussion was carried so high,
Mock'd, as it listen'd, and said with a smile,
“Men boast, but the victor am I!”
“Thou?” growl'd the Cannon Ball—“thou! is it thou
Who didst level yon walls with the plain,
Mowing down men, as the harvesters mow
Hollow paths thro' the thick of the grain?
Braggart! 'tis I who alone can do this.
'Tis the brush of my brazen orb bursts wide
War's mason'd masses!”—Whereto, with a hiss,
“Silence, blockhead!” the Powder replied.
“On the arsenal floor had'st thou rested still,
Were it not for me, who thy wings provide.
And thou art but the deed: it is I am the will.”
But, as thus he mutter'd, with surly pride,
“Vagabond!” scornfully splutter'd the Match,
“Boast not thou in thy master's presence!
Ball, Cannon, and Powder,—inert batch
Of base stuff, stirr'd by my quickening essence,—
The Fire am I, and my slaves are ye.
He, whose vitals a vulture tore,
Well was he 'ware of the worth of me,
When from heaven he stole, in the days of yore,
The spark that in my Promethean wand
Yet glows with the heat of a god's invention.”

3.

“Attention!”
An officer cried, in command.

4.

For faint, and afar, with a dying spasm,
The bruised-out battle was breathing again.
And the gun was charged, from his gaping chasm,
To clear it away from the cumber'd plain
Where it crawl'd in pain.

5.

The gunner pointed the gun to the mark.
With an eager spark
The ardent match, death's nimble adept,
To the touch-hole leapt,
And. . . . went out in the dark.
Not a groan, not a flame, from the great gun came,
Not a belch of smoke: unejected slept
In his burthen'd gullet the sullen bullet:
The captains were cursing, the gunners were grumbling,
And, drop upon droplet, as down it came tumbling,
Merrily, mockingly laugh'd the light Shower:
“O fools! lo, I sprinkle a silvery twinkle
Of beads from my bosom, and where is your power?
Black dust of death, art thou melted quite
Into a harmless unsavoury sop?
What of your lightnings? where is their light?
Quencht in a quagmire, slain by a slop!
Your valorous thunders, voices of might?
Struck dumb by a dancing drop!”

6.

The dying Fire heard this,
And with a hiss
Spat out the scorn of his indignant hate,
“Demon of Impotence!
Boast not that thou art great,
Upon the poor pretence
Of greatness hinder'd and defeated by thee.
Force to annihilate
Force, hast thou: but the gods deny thee
Force to create.”

7.

“Stay, not so fast!”
Sighingly answer'd him the streaming Rain.
“Destroyer, what hast thou created? Cast
On thy brief work (death, devastation, pain)
One glare—thy last!
Show me thy greatness. Is it yonder plain
Where thou hast pass'd,
Leaving behind thee hideous heaps of slain
And ruin vast?
Lo, with my little drops, I bless again
And beautify the fields which thou didst blast!
Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt,
But call not Greatness what the gods call Guilt.
Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt,
And poppied corn, I bring.
'Mid mouldering Babels, to Oblivion built,
My violets spring.
Little by little, my small drops have strength
To deck with green delights the grateful earth:
Little by little, to large seas at length
Small springs give birth:
By little things the growing world grows great,
And of great doings rests but little done:
From little fibres in the loom of Fate
Time's robe is spun:
Small are the cymbals that, when clasht, proclaim
The march of Force: from shafts of tiny stature
Co-operant atoms build the crystal frame
Of mighty Nature.
By little ducts Thought's widening river runs
Thro' nerve and brain, yet fills the ages vast,
And even the secret of the central suns
Invades at last:
In little waves light leaps from star to star:
Small pencils paint the welkin's azure pall:
And small life's primal universes are,
Yet they are all.”