Charles Tennyson Turner

The Steam Threshing-Machine With the Straw Carrier

Flush with the pond the lurid furnace burned
At eve, while smoke and vapour filled the yard;
The gloomy winter sky was dimly starred,
The fly-wheel with a mellow murmur turned;
While, ever rising on its mystic stair
In the dim light, from secret chambers borne,
The straw of harvest, severed from the corn,
Climbed, and fell over, in the murky air.
I thought of mind and matter, will and law,
And then of him*, who set his stately seal
Of Roman words on all the forms he saw
Of old-world hubandry: I could but feel
With what a rich precision he would draw
The endless ladder, and the booming wheel!

* Virgil in his Georgics