Classic Poem

Thy Genius, Colebrooke, faithless to his charge
Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams,
Formed for the train that haunt poetic dreams,
Naiads and nymphs, — now hears the toiling barge
And the swart Cyclops' ever-changing forge
Din in thy dells; — permits the dark-red gleams,
From umbered fires on all thy hills, the beams,
Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large
Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils
Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe
Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy gales,
And stain thy glassy floods; — while o'er the globe
To spread thy stores metallic, this rude yell
Drowns the wild woodland song, and breaks the Poet's spell.