The Jubilee of a Magazine
Yes; your up-dated modern page—All flower-fresh, as it appears—Can claim a time-tried lineage,
That reaches backward fifty years(Which, if but short for sleepy squires,Is much in magazines’ careers).
—Here, on your cover, never tiresThe sower, reaper, thresher, whileAs through the seasons of our sires
Each wills to work in ancient styleWith seedlip, sickle, share and flail,Though modes have since moved many a mile!
The steel-roped plough now rips the vale,With cog and tooth the sheaves are won,Wired wheels drum out the wheat like hail;
But if we ask, what has been doneTo unify the mortal lotSince your bright leaves first saw the sun,
Beyond mechanic furtherance—whatAdvance can rightness, candour, claim?Truth bends abashed, and answers not.
Despite your volumes’ gentle aimTo straighten visions wry and wrong,Events jar onward much the same!
—Had custom tended to prolong,As on your golden page engrained,Old processes of blade and prong,
And best invention been retainedFor high crusades to lessen tearsThroughout the race, the world had gained! . . .But too much, this, for fifty years.
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