| |
| “WHAT does it matter,” you say, | |
| “When the wilderness lies tame to the hand of man? | |
| It can last but a day, | |
| It is part of the primal plan | |
| For the best of mortal endeavor to pass away.” | 5 |
| |
| Nay, not so. | |
| Man must conquer, the soul of him win, | |
| Leash the lightning, burrow the plumbless sea, | |
| Level the mountains, make him a place within | |
| Dank-aired mines, build him cities where he | 10 |
| Shall walk alert and free | |
| Nor trample on want and woe. | |
| |
| ’Tis the spirit of man to fight | |
| For the ultimate prizes, won | |
| By the sweat of his brow, the light | 15 |
| That is in him; by star and sun, | |
| To plant and plan and die in the quest, | |
| Till the tortured world, by east and west, | |
| Yield him a largess of tilth and joy and rest. | |
| |
| Haggard, beat-down, beset | 20 |
| By a myriad opposing things, | |
| He shall labor in faith, to get | |
| The glory that gives him wings; | |
| To see the desert bloom like the rose, | |
| And the crooked paths made straight, | 25 |
| The miracle wrought in the face of foes | |
| That menace him, soon and late. | |
| Since something within him dares, and his deep heart knows. | |
| |
| ’Tis the romance of daedal days | |
| In this latest birth of Time, | 30 |
| And better than all the lays | |
| Of legends that ring in rhyme; | |
| ’Tis the victor-song sublime | |
| Of the pigmy that first began | |
| Up toward the stars to climb, | 35 |
| When he quoth to himself, “I can!” | |
| |
| He cannot but live his life | |
| Pricked by this wonder-thought: | |
| To use the hammer and knife, | |
| Till out of the stress is wrought, | 40 |
| Out of the sorrow and strife, | |
| A world a-smile in an after age; | |
| Even as God in his counsels sage, | |
| Struck from chaos our heritage. | |
| |
| Then hail to the master work, | 45 |
| To the romance of matter, hail! | |
| Never a chance to shirk, | |
| Never the will to fail, | |
| Till the planet, conquered and cleansed, shall shine | |
| As fire, and swing to the song divine | 50 |
| Of the cosmic choir,—brother, your song and mine! | |
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