We should see the struggling victim In the toils of the ensnarer; See the troubled spirit writhing 'Neath the lashings of detraction; See the burdened nature groaning 'Mid the polished shafts of envy; See the sinner's cunning malice, In the act of human torture; See the Christian's anxious fightings, Foes without, and fears within him. All these lessons we should garner From each spirit's veiled communion. Change is written on the landscape, Change is speaking from the hearthstone, All the work of sure mutation, Lays its impress on the city. Could the earliest explorer Of this Eden habitation, Tread once more the waving blue grass, 'Mid her rivers, rills, and streamlets, Not the aged Rip Van Winkle, Oped his eyes in greater wonder, Not the sleeper and the dreamer, E'er beheld in more amazement. Then the shaded, quiet woodland, Was the home of untamed creatures; Now the solitudes are teeming With mankind and man's inventions; Then the wolf, and bear, and panther, Held their orgies in the caverns; Now the silent grottoes foster Only Nature's radiant jewels; Then the rattle-snake's quick poison Nerved its fangs to fierce encounter; Now the bruised head lies harmless 'Neath the heel of the seed of woman; Then the canebrake and the thicket Harbored noxious weeds and vipers; Now the undergrowth has vanished, 'Mid the golden sheaves of harvest; Now the trees have laid their foliage, In the dust of human footsteps, Now the forest trees have fallen, At the bidding of the woodman. Oak and chestnut, hickory, walnut, Poplar, sycamore, and locust, Beech and elm and pine and cedar, Laurel, holly, ash and maple-- All the trees have bent their growing To the husbandman's caprices. All the beasts have fled to westward; All the reptiles skulk in hiding; All the rivers and the brooklets Have subdued their wild, free rolling. Ancient mounds and Aztec relics, Mural signs and hieroglyphics, Toltec remnants and weird mummies, All the arts and queer devices Of a prehistoric people, Have entombed their sylvan phantoms, In an everlasting Lethe. Now the woods and plains are surveys, Of distinctive tracts and precincts, Now the wide, primeval limits Bound neat villages and districts. There are Bryantsville and Fitchport, Buckeye, Logan Town and Tyro, Duncan Town and Buena Vista, Hyattville, Paint Lick, and Lowell, Clustered round the mother city, The fair city on the hillside; Clustered 'mid the charming bowers Of the Garrard county woodlands. Now the wild flower's timid blooming Colors distant fields and by-ways, And the city's rare exotics, In the crystal greenhouse, flourish; Rose and lily and camelia, Tulip, fuschia, and verbena, Rear their gorgeous tints to gladden Many a sweet domestic picture. All the knotted thorns and briers, Serve in close-cut garden hedges; All the grapevine swings are curling