With outward signs, as well as inward life,
The world is hastening onward to its end!
With higher purpose our Age is rife,
Than those to which with groveling mind’s we tend.
For lo! beneath the Atlantic’s stormy breast
Is laid, from shore to shore, the Electric wire;
And words, with speed of thought, from east to west
Dart to and fro on wings that never tire.
May never man, to higher objects blind,
Forget by whom this miracle was wrought;
But worship and adore the Eternal Mind,
Which gave at length to man the wondrous thought;
His Providential Purpose to fulfill.
– by Jones Very
Source: Carmela Ciuraru, ed., Poems for America: 125 Poems that Celebrate the American Experience; (NY: Scribners Poetry, 2002), 38.
