Did any seer of ancient time forbode
This mighty engine, which we daily see
Accepting our full harvests, like a god,
With clouds about his shoulders--it might be
Some poet-husbandman, some lord of verse,
Old Hesiod, or the wizard Mantuan,
Who catalogued in rich hexameters
The rake, the roller, and the mystic van;
Or else some priest of Ceres, it might seem,
Who witnessed, as he trod the silent fane,
The notes and auguries of coming change,
Of other ministrants in shrine and grange--
The sweating statue, and her sacred wain
Low-booming with the prophecy of steam!