With rising locks a thousand hills alarms,
Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms,
355 Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves,
And Plenty, Arts, and Commerce freight the waves.
--NYMPHS! who erewhile round BRINDLEY'S early bier
On show-white bosoms shower'd the incessant tear,
Adorn his tomb!--oh, raise the marble bust,
360 Proclaim his honours, and protect his dust!
With urns inverted, round the sacred shrine
Their ozier wreaths let weeping Naiads twine;
While on the top MECHANIC GENIUS stands,
Counts the fleet waves, and balances the lands.


[_On Brindley's cradle smiled_. l. 341. The life of Mr. Brindley, whose
great abilities in the construction of canal navigation were called
forth by the patronage of the Duke of Bridgwater, may be read in Dr.
Kippis's Biographia Britannica, the excellence of his genius is visible
in every part of this island. He died at Turnhurst in Staffordshire in
1772, and ought to have a monument in the cathedral church at
Lichfield.]


365 X. "NYMPHS! YOU first taught to pierce the secret caves
Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves;
Bade with quick stroke the sliding piston bear
The viewless columns of incumbent air;--
Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below,
370 Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow,
Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move,