[183] ]And a sound comes floating westward, like the echo of a bell,
Calling men to where the loaves and fishes are.
For crude, unbroken fancies get the bit between their teeth,
While the earth puts on a very different guise,
And even Sorrow’s self assumes a far less sombre wreath
When the poet and the snifter fraternise.
They are rushing through the levels, and are drumming in the stopes,
And a-cursing at the ‘presser’ and the hose;
But they never took to dancing where the Printer pulls the ropes
And the Editor blue-pencils half their prose,