 | The Triangular Society |  |
A DEMOLISHED HOMESTEAD.
We rail at Time for spoiling what we prize,
But mild and gradual is his strong control;
His rudest touch but charms and sanctifies,
His changes bring no shock to sense or soul.
But mild and gradual is his strong control;
His rudest touch but charms and sanctifies,
His changes bring no shock to sense or soul.
Seldom by Time are razed the sacred shrines
Of local love and neighborhood renown;
Improvement blasts them with her new designs,
And Traffic's grasping talons dig them down.
Of local love and neighborhood renown;
Improvement blasts them with her new designs,
And Traffic's grasping talons dig them down.
Fond, faithful hearts which will not understand
The change that wounds and wrongs their constant truth,
Grieve that to-day, with sacrilegious hand,
Removes the ancient landmarks of their youth.
The change that wounds and wrongs their constant truth,
Grieve that to-day, with sacrilegious hand,
Removes the ancient landmarks of their youth.
239
By Trade and Greed our idols are displaced;
Not one is safe from their destructive clutch;
Rudely they lay our pleasant places waste,
Blighting all beauty with their fatal touch.
Not one is safe from their destructive clutch;
Rudely they lay our pleasant places waste,
Blighting all beauty with their fatal touch.
Where once were murmuring depths of waving leaves,
A mossy roof, and household love and mirth,
The cable creaks, the derrick groans and heaves,
The pick-axe quarrels with the unwilling earth:
A mossy roof, and household love and mirth,
The cable creaks, the derrick groans and heaves,
The pick-axe quarrels with the unwilling earth:
They ruin and uproot all olden grace,
All precious memories which our youth has known,
Old homes, old trees—and give us in their place
Huge heaps of rectilinear brick and stone.
All precious memories which our youth has known,
Old homes, old trees—and give us in their place
Huge heaps of rectilinear brick and stone.
Surely the dim and unregarded ghosts
Of those who used these pleasant shades to range,
Come up at night out of their misty coasts,
And wring their spectral hands above the change!
Of those who used these pleasant shades to range,
Come up at night out of their misty coasts,
And wring their spectral hands above the change!
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