Now the casting may begin; See the breach indented there: Ere we run the fusion in, Halt--and speed the pious prayer! Pull the bung out-- See around and about What vapor, what vapor--God help us!--has risen?-- Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison! What friend is like the might of fire When man can watch and wield the ire? Whate'er we shape or work, we owe Still to that heaven-descended glow. But dread the heaven-descended glow, When from their chain its wild wings go, When, where it listeth, wide and wild Sweeps the Free Nature's free-born Child! When the Frantic One fleets, While no force can withstand, Through the populous streets Whirling ghastly the brand; For the Element hates What man's labor creates, And the work of his hand! Impartially out from the cloud, Or the curse or the blessing may fall! Benignantly out from the cloud, Come the dews, the revivers of all! Avengingly out from the cloud Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball! Hark--a wail from the steeple!--aloud The bell shrills its voice to the crowd! Look--look--red as blood All on high! It is not the daylight that fills with its flood The sky! What a clamor awaking Roars up through the street! What a hell-vapor breaking Rolls on through the street! And higher and higher Aloft moves the Column of Fire! Through the vistas and rows Like a whirlwind it goes, And the air like the steam from a furnace glows. Beams are crackling--posts are shrinking-- Walls are sinking--windows clinking Children crying-- Mothers flying-- And the beast (the black ruin yet smoldering under) Yells the howl of its pain and its ghastly wonder! Hurry and skurry--away--away, The face of the night is as clear as day! As the links in a chain, Again and again Flies the bucket from hand to hand; High in arches up-rushing The engines are gushing, And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds, With a roar on the breast of the element bounds. To the grain and the fruits, Through the rafters and beams, Through the barns and the garners it crackles and streams! As if they would rend up the earth from its roots, Rush the flames to the sky Giant-high; And at length, Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength! With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume, And submits to his doom! Desolate The place, and dread For storms the barren bed! In the blank voids that cheerful casements were, Comes to and fro the melancholy air, And sits despair; And through the ruin, blackening in its shroud, Peers, as it flits, the melancholy cloud. One human glance of grief upon the grave Of all that Fortune gave The loiterer takes--then turns him to depart, And grasps the wanderer's staff and mans his heart: Whatever else the element bereaves One blessing more than all it reft--it leaves The face that he loves!--He counts them o'er, See--not one look is missing from that store!