The Air Register

When the Tower gun announced Queen Anna's death,
And straight the king proclaim'd a hunting day,
He dream'd not how that signal, and the breath
Of those brief words, would never fleet away.
He dream'd not how the booming of that gun
Would be a deathless pulse through space and time,
And his own royal voice be drifted on
With all its scorn. The motion of a crime
Soon meets the sorrowing angels; but, if true
That nature has this sin-recording force,
Each nobler act and utterance takes its course
Through the same air, and is immortal too.
And every deed of love and breath of prayer
Shall make its own memorial current there.