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Completion of Atlantic Cable, July 29, 1866.
COME, listen all unto my song; | |
| It is no silly fable; | |
| ’Tis all about the mighty cord | |
| They call the Atlantic Cable. | |
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| Bold Cyrus Field he said, says he, | 5 |
| I have a pretty notion | |
| That I can run a telegraph | |
| Across the Atlantic Ocean. | |
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| Then all the people laughed and said, | |
| They’d like to see him do it; | 10 |
| He might get half-seas over, but | |
| He never could go through it; | |
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| To carry out his foolish plan | |
| He never would be able; | |
| He might as well go hang himself | 15 |
| With his Atlantic Cable. | |
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| But Cyrus was a valiant man, | |
| A fellow of decision; | |
| And heeded not their mocking words, | |
| Their laughter and derision. | 20 |
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| Twice did his bravest efforts fail, | |
| And yet his mind was stable; | |
| He wa’n’t the man to break his heart | |
| Because he broke his cable. | |
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| “Once more, my gallant boys!” he cried; | 25 |
| “Three times!—you know the fable,— | |
| (I’ll make it thirty,” muttered he, | |
| “But I will lay the cable.”) | |
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| Once more they tried,—hurrah! hurrah! | |
| What means this great commotion? | 30 |
| The Lord be praised! the cable’s laid | |
| Across the Atlantic Ocean! | |
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| Loud ring the bells,—for, flashing through | |
| Six hundred leagues of water, | |
| Old Mother England’s benison | 35 |
| Salutes her eldest daughter! | |
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| O’er all the land the tidings speed, | |
| And soon, in every nation, | |
| They’ll hear about the cable with | |
| Profoundest admiration! | 40 |
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| Now long live President and Queen; | |
| And long live gallant Cyrus; | |
| And may his courage, faith, and zeal | |
| With emulation fire us; | |
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| And may we honor evermore | 45 |
| The manly, bold, and stable; | |
| And tell our sons, to make them brave, | |
| How Cyrus laid the cable! | |
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