SONNET.—IRON.
Reading edition
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BY WM. ALEXANDER.
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Thy worth, O Iron! can be never told!
Thou art the richest treasure of the mine!
By thee great nations polished are and shine,
And using thee contemn, may glittering gold—
Hail! ever useful one! Art were now dead
If wanting thee. Thou in our life-blood flowest;
Where run streams, fountains, there thou likewise goest;
War claims thee, for thy presence makes him red;
The mariner his needle forms of thee,
To guide him pilot-like across the main;
From thee old oaks solidity, too, gain;
In cinders, clay thou art found continually—
Earth’s mineral strata yield to thee the palm;
Thou canst make war—and mak’st the nations calm.