The Press

The Press

When liberty first sought a home on the earth,

No altar the goddess could find

Till art's greatest triumph to printing gave birth,

And temper she reared in the mind,

The phantoms of ignorance shrunk from the sight,

And tyranny's visage grew wan,

As wildly he traced, in the volume of light,

The pledge of redemption to man,

All hail the return of the glorious day,

When freedom her banner unfurled -

And sprung from the press the Promethean ray,

That dawn'd o'er a slumbering world!

When science, exulting in freedom and might,

Unveil'd to the nations her eye,

And waved from her tresses, refulgent in light,

A glory that never can die.

The mighty enchanter, whose magical key

Unlock'd all the fountains of mind,

The thoughts of the mighty in triumph set free,

In cloister'd confusion confined.

The lay of the poet, the lore of the sage ,

Burst forth from obscurity's gloom,

And started to life, in the wonderful page,

The glories of Greece and of Rome.

Great ark of our freedom! the press we adore -

Our glory and power are in thee;

A voice thou hast wafted to earth's farthest shore -

The shout of the great and the free.

The slave's galling fetters are burst by thy might'

The empire of reason is thine;

And nations rejoice in the glorious light

Which flows from a fountain divine.

Unattributed

1:49, p. 4

1837.12.09