upon a jutting cape of rock, and found himself in a wilderness to his heart's desire, - a rugged turbulence of hills and ravines where the pack and the scarlet hunters could not come.

- Copyright, 1905, by The Page Company. Used by special arrangement with The Page Company, Boston, Massachusetts, publishers of the works of Charles G. D. Roberts.

Charles George Douglas Roberts, the author of "Red Fox," is a Canadian poet and writer of fine stories of animals. He was born in Douglas, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1860. Mr. Roberts is also the author of an excellent history of Canada.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

THE SONG OF STEAM

GEORGE W. CUTTER

This song was written by George W. Cutter, an American poet who was born in Massachusetts in 1801, and who died in 1865. Steam is the great power that runs most of the machinery of the world to-day and which does nearly all of our work, and the poet imagines that it sings this song.

The Steam tells how for ages it lay hidden from man, and that it hid away and laughed at man's puny strength. The power of steam had always existed, but man did not know it. Many men had tried to put a harness on Steam, but it remained for a Scotchman named James Watt to conquer and harness this great power. It must not be thought that James Watt was the first man who ever made an engine that would run by steam. There were others before him. But his engine was the first really successful one. It is said that when Watt was a boy, he noticed the steam lifting the lid of his mother's teakettle. It made him think that if so small a kettle of steam had so much power, a great boiler would have power enough to do very heavy work if he could only harness the steam in it. The mighty engines that run our railroad trains and drive the great ships are the result of his invention. He harnessed and made a willing slave of the giant that had laughed at man for centuries.

To read the story, you must imagine that you are the Spirit of Steam, long ago, hiding from men and laughing at man's boast of power. Think how you laughed at armies marching so slowly and bragging that they had marched fifteen miles a day when you could have taken them three hundred miles in the same time!

How you laughed at the slow sailing ships that men thought fast! At the little work men could do in a day with their hands!

Think of how you laughed at men's idea of speed, knowing all the time how you could drive a car or a ship if you were only given a chance!

But finally they found you! How you rushed to your" throne" (the cylinder of the engine) and gloated when you showed men what you could do!

You showed men that "time space" yield to your power. For you crowded into five days the weary weeks that it took a sailing ship to cross the Atlantic. You crowded into four days. the months of snail-like crawling that it took to cross the United States. The world was yours! You were master of man's work! The whales and the sharks ran from you, afraid. You went down into deep mines, shoved the men aside, and showed them how to do real work. You brought water from afar and distributed it everywhere to the thirsty millions in the city. (Think of this the next time you turn a water faucet to get a drink.)

You blew the bellows, you hammered the ore, and forged the steel. You did everything that man had to do by hand before he harnessed you.

You never tired, for you had no muscles to grow weary, no brain to waste away.

And at last, you hope to become so perfect in your power and your work that man

. . may ‘go and play,'

While you manage this world yourself."

The next time you see a great locomotive pulling a long, heavy train, think of this story, and play that you are Steam-roaring along in your power.

Learn the meaning of the following words before studying the poem :

puny small, weak.
wayward breeze: the breeze
that might choose to blow in
any direction, perhaps the
wrong one.
tardy wheel: a slow, lazy wheel

work it might do in stronger hands.

panting courser: a panting, tired riding horse.

courier dove a carrier pigeon bearing a message.

always behind time in the orient floods: the eastern seas.

5

10

15

THE SONG OF STEAM

1

Harness me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein;

For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain.

How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight,
For many a countless hour,

At the childish boast of human might,

And the pride of human power.

2

When I saw an army upon the land,
A navy upon the seas,

Creeping along, a snail-like band,

Or waiting the wayward breeze;
When I marked the peasant faintly reel
With the toil that he daily bore,

As he feebly turned the tardy wheel,

Or tugged at the weary oar; —

3

When I measured the panting courser's speed,

The flight of the courier dove

As he bore the law a king decreed,

Or the lines of impatient love

I could but think how the world would feel,

As these were outstripp'd afar,

When I should be bound to the rushing keel,
Or chained to the flying oar.

4

Ha ha ha! they found me at last,

They invited me forth at length,

And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast,
And laughed in my iron strength.
Oh! then ye saw a wondrous change
On the earth and the ocean wide,
Where now my fiery armies range,
Nor wait for wind or tide.

5

Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o'er,
The mountain's steep decline,

Time-space- have yielded to my power-
The world! the world is mine!
The rivers, the sun hath earliest blest,
Or those where his beams decline;
The giant streams of the queenly west,
Or the orient floods divine: