As we sit in rapture, listening to the chime.

Will ever the sense of music in man,

Having remained since history began,

Be obliterated in time to come;

And his taste for sounds become numb,

By the strain on him these machines make,

Hounding him by their grating sleep or wake,

By the screeching buzzes they make;

With our songs all ground up into rag,

Even the stirring ones of the glorious flag,