Song of the Telegraph by J. A. Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 15, 1865

Song of the Telegraph.

By J. A. Smith

[PEOPLE do not forget to cry peace and safety. Everything must proclaim this. And according to their ideas as expressed in the following poetry, they would have Daniel’s image turned topsy-turvy, having this, instead of the Babylonian, the golden age.

J. A. Smith.

Libertyville, Iowa.]

I have heard men say that when winds were high, And clouds were tossing about the sky, Journeying over some lone morass, Where the endless wires of the telegraph pass, They have stood and listened, and trembled with fear, The song of the telegraph to hear, A sad and most unearthly strain; A sharp, low moan like a soul in pain, Rising and falling fitfully, Like the long waves after a storm at sea, I have thought and wondered many a time, What the wire would say, could it speak in rhyme; And thinking much, and wondering long, At length have found the telegraph’s song.

“Lo, the golden age has come! Light has broken o’er the world! Let the cannon mouth be dumb, Let the battle flag be furled! God hath sent me to the nations, To unite them, that each man Of all future generations May be cosmopolitan.

“I the lightning—the destroyer— I the untamable, the proud— To be harnessed to the wire, I have left my thunder-cloud, Harbinger of peace and union, Messenger no more of wrath, To establish sweet communion, Down to earth I take my path.

“With the olive branch extended, Swift I go to every shore; Soon all nations shall be blended, They shall hear of war no more. Peace and progress be forever Printed on the hearts of men, So that future time may never See a battle field again.”

[The Telegraph Review.]