The Man with the Book

The Wizard with his magic Book
     Dispelled the darkness of that hour
When Ignorance with [??] wits
     Hold palsied Manhood in her power;
Cunning oppression and her mailed
Defenders at his presence gnarled.

Gray despotism, with hands blood wet,
     Beheld in awe the fatal sign
That ambushed in the Alphabet
     Gave menace to his throne malign.
He saw his doom, predicted well,
     When first his victim learned to spell.

The gloomy legions of old Night,—
     The sons of cruelty and fraud
     Fell, stricken at the ?? night—
Of Knowledge, dumb and overawed;
A glory from the lettered page
To blindness smote them in their rage.

The peasant in his humble cot
     With joy the magic message heard;
The thralldom of his lowly lot
     Was shattered by the written word
?? ?? the serf since life began
Stood up redeemed, a stalwart Man.

Temples of truth and virtuous love
     Rose in the path the Teacher trod,
Where gloomy ?asties frowned, before
     Blithe homes redeemed the blasted sod,
And bouncy[?] girls and boys with glee
     Marches to the Book-man’s ministrely.

The souls wo grovelled on the earth
     Caught from the record, as they read,
An impulse to the nobler birth,
     Their resurrection from the dead,
And lifted from the miry clay
     Trod marches through the Milky Way!

Slower the letter-bearing type
     Above the iron bolts of war,
The peaceful Pan with pastoral pipie
     Beyond the thunder-wielding Thor,
And crown the Man above all kings
Who gave the Book that gave us wings