Page 338 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

THE SONG OF THE PRINTING PRESS,
[W ritten expressly for this V olum e.]

I ’M a king among men, and no monarch of old,
Whose valorous deeds to the world have been told,
Ever ruled in a kingdom so wide as my own,
Or graced with his purple so mighty a throne.

From the warm brain of genius I sprang at a bound,
With bolts, screws and pinions, and cylinders round,
I ilk--fountains and cranks, mighty levers and rings,
Wide feed-boards and buffer-wheels, gear-wheels and spring

I have pulleys and rollers, belts, grippers and flies-—
No finer machinery man’s brain could devise ;
They made me with hammer, file, chisel and fire—
Though I go night and day, yet my wheels never tire.

In each crank, in each spring, in each wheel is a thought,
And into cold iron man’s mind has been wrought:
There is life in the crank, in the spring, in the wheel ;
There is brain in the levers and blood in the steel.

Though silent and dead to all eyes I may seem,
I start into life at the hiss of the steam ;
My axles are oiled and my cylinders fleet,
My dizzy wheels whirl and my wild pulses beat.

Like the snowflakes descending in clouds from the sky,
The fresh-printed sheets from my dell fingers fly ;
They rustle, they flutter, they drop thick and fast
A s leaves from the trees in the hurricane’s blast,

I print what I get— telegraphic despatches,
Births, weddings, elopments, divorces and matches •
Things wondrous and witty, things foolish and wise—
It is said that I ’ve even been known to print lies,