The Husband must enter
          The hostile life,
          With struggle and strife,
          To plant or to watch,
          To snare or to snatch,
          To pray and importune,
        Must wager and venture
          And hunt down his fortune! 
      Then flows in a current the gear and the gain,
      And the garners are fill’d with the gold of the grain,
      Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre! 
        Within sits Another,
          The thrifty Housewife;
        The mild one, the mother—­
          Her home is her life. 
        In its circle she rules,
        And the daughters she schools,
          And she cautions the boys,
        With a bustling command,
        And a diligent hand
          Employ’d she employs;
        Gives order to store,
        And the much makes the more;
    Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender smelling,
    And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the dwelling;
    And she hoards in the presses, well polish’d and full,
    The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool;
    Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and endeavour
    Rests never! 
      Blithe the Master (where the while
      From his roof he sees them smile)
        Eyes the lands, and counts the gain;
      There, the beams projecting far,
      And the laden store-house are,
      And the granaries bow’d beneath
        The blessings of the golden grain;
      There, in undulating motion,
      Wave the corn-fields like an ocean. 
      Proud the boast the proud lips breathe:—­
      “My house is built upon a rock,
      And sees unmoved the stormy shock
        Of waves that fret below!”
      What chain so strong, what girth so great,
      To bind the giant form of Fate?—­
        Swift are the steps of Woe.

* * * * *

      Now the casting may begin;
        See the breach indented there: 
      Ere we run the fusion in,
        Halt—­and speed the pious prayer! 
          Pull the bung out—­
          See around and about
    What vapour, what vapour—­God help us!—­has risen?—­
    Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison!

    What, friend, is like the might of fire
    When man can watch and wield the ire? 
    Whate’er we shape or work, we owe
    Still to that heaven-descended glow. 
    But dread the heaven-descended glow,
    When from their chain its wild wings go,
      When, where it listeth, wide and wild
      Sweeps the free Nature’s free-born Child! 
      When the Frantic One fleets,
        While no force can withstand,
      Through the populous streets
        Whirling ghastly the brand;
      For the Element hates
      What Man’s labour creates,