Classic Poem

Thus sang the shepherd crowned at noon,
And every breast was heaved with sighs; —
Attracted by the tree and tune,
The winged singers left the skies.

Close to the minstrel sat the maid;
His song had drawn her fondly near:
Her large and dewy eyes betrayed
The secret to her bosom dear.

The factory people through the fields,
Pale men and maids and children pale,
Listened, forgetful of the wheels,
Till the loud summons woke the vale.

And all the mowers rising said,
" The world has lost its dewy prime;
Alas! the Golden age is dead,
And we are of the Iron time!

" The wheel and loom have left our homes, —
Our maidens sit with empty hands,
Or toil beneath yon roaring domes,
And fill the factory's pallid bands.

" The fields are swept as by a war,
Our harvests are no longer blithe;
Yonder the iron mower's car
Comes with his devastating scythe.

" They lay us waste by fire and steel,
Besiege us to our very doors;
Our crops before the driving wheel
Fall captive to the conquerors.

" The pastoral age is dead, is dead!
Of all the happy ages chief;
Let every mower bow his head,
In token of sincerest grief.

" And let our brows be thickly bound
With every saddest flower that blows;
And all our scythes be deeply wound
With every mournful leaf that grows. "

Thus sang the mowers; and they said,
" The world has lost its dewy prime;
Alas! the Golden age is dead,
And we are of the Iron time! "

Each wreathed his scythe and twined his head;
They took their slow way through the plain:
The minstrel and the maiden led
Across the fields the solemn train.

The air was rife with clamorous sounds,
Of clattering factory — thundering forge, —
Conveyed from the remotest bounds
Of smoky plain and mountain gorge.

Here, with a sudden shriek and roar,
The rattling engine thundered by;
A steamer past the neighbouring shore
Convulsed the river and the sky.

The brook that erewhile laughed abroad,
And o'er one light wheel loved to play,
Now, like a felon, groaning trod
Its hundred treadmills night and day.

The fields were tilled with steeds of steam,
Whose fearful neighing shook the vales;
Along the road there rang no team, —
The barns were loud, but not with flails.

And still the mournful mowers said,
" The world has lost its dewy prime;
Alas! the Golden age is dead,
And we are of the Iron time! "