SONG OF THE TYPES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 83, 5 April 1873, Page 4

SONG OF THE TYPES.

(From the New York Tribune ) In a dismal garret, and dingy town, Where the Rhine's hlue *waves are flowing, Old Guttenberg conjured my spirit down, And set my footsteps going. But I burst on the world like the morning's sun, And I lighted its midnight hoary; And though my long journey has just begun, I have flooded the globe with glory ! I have torn down the castles of crime and sin, I have opened the dungeons'of sorrow, I have let the glad radiance of freedom in, ' And scattered the legions of horror. I have broken the fetters tbat shackled the mind, Restored it its strength and beauty : And taught the proud princes that rule mankind, The lesson that power is duty ! I have rescued from prison the human soul, And opened its inner portal, Till it spurns indignant human control, And soars in its flight immortal 1 In the realm of science I scatter light; To the poor bear hope in his hovel; For never again shall the world iD night, In darkness and slavery grovel ! Let no scholar despair, no warrior quail; Oblivion's scythe is rotten; . For no more shall the words of wisdom fail, Nor the hero's deeds he forgotten. The minstrel's strings shall not break again, And love shall be ever vernal, For the maiden's vow and the poet's strain Shall sound through the aisles eternal ! The old world shakes 'neath my giant tread, And in vain tries to bind my pinions, Eor my voice speaks doom, and my arm bears dread To crumbling thrones and dominions. Four hundred years their wails I've heard, And the cause of .their dire alarm is, That the pen is mightier than the sword, And the types than a. thousand armies !