Transatlantic Cable 5 – The Senator’s Speech
Does it seem, I say,
All but the most incredible
A slender copper wire is stretched
Across two thousand miles ?
Across the all-but-fathomless,
Where humans cannot penetrate,
There spans a thread across the sea
To link our distant isles.
Does it seem, I say,
All but a miracle of art
That thoughts of living men
In the cheerful light of day,
About the markets and the seasons,
And elections, and the wars,
And tender nothings from our lives,
Should manifest this way ?
Does it seem, I say,
All but the most remarkable
These thoughts should clothe themselves
In such an elemental spark,
And shoot with fiery speed
In a moment, in a twinkling,
From hemisphere to hemisphere,
Through vast abyssal dark ?
Does it seem, I say,
All but the work of genius
That through such nether oceans
Streams of thoughts should race and leap ?
Among the uncouth monsters,
Along the wreck-paved floor,
And throughout the oozy dungeons
Of the silent, rayless deep.
