And gave far weightier business to my charge.

There I was told I had accounts to keep

Of those vast Works, where wonders never sleep,

Where spindles, bobbins, rovings, threads, and pins,

[Make] up the complex mass that ever spins.

There, at my desk, in my six feet of room,

I noted every power of every loom;

Sounds of all kinds I heard from mortal lungs— 170

Eternal battle of unwearied tongues,

The jar of men and women, girls and boys,