The Poetry of Real Life A New Edition, Much Enlarged and Improved. By Henry Ellison |
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ON THE NEGLECT OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. |
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 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON THE NEGLECT OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.
Where, in this darkness, is the master-mindTo say, “let there be light:” to call forth day
And intellectual light, the fair array
Of peace and order, from this chaos blind
Of moral elements? in which confined,
Unquickened, all the germs of life decay,
Or work for ill: wanting the divine ray
Of knowledge, which has left the mass behind
Inert—alas! we have gone on too far,
And pérfected mechanics but not men:
Machines, neglecting Man, for whom they are.
So hath the stream of life become a fen
Of stagnant waters, tainting all the air,
Yet they who breathe it know it not e'en then!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |