THE JUBILEE OF A MAGAZINE

Yes; your up-dated modern page -

All flower-fresh, as it appears -

Can claim a time-tried lineage,

That reaches backward fifty years

( Which, if but short for sleepy squires,

Is much in magazines’ careers ).

- Here, on your cover, never tires

The sower, reaper, thresher, while

As through the seasons of our sires

Each wills to work in ancient style

With seedlip, sickle, share and flail,

Though modes have since moved many a mile!

The steel-roped plough now rips the vale,

With cog and tooth the sheaves are won,

Wired wheels drum out the wheat like hail;

But if we ask, what has been done

To unify the mortal lot

Since your bright leaves first saw the sun,

Beyond mechanic furtherance — what

Advance can rightness, candour, claim?

Truth bends abashed, and answers not.

Despite your volumes’ gentle aim

To straighten visions wry and wrong,

Events jar onward much the same!

- Had custom tended to prolong,

As on your golden page engrained,

Old processes of blade and prong,

And best invention been retained

For high crusades to lessen tears

Throughout the race, the world had gained!...

But too much, this, for fifty years.