238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ii. 



I am the child of earth and air and sea ! 



My lullaby by hoarse Silurian storms 



Was chanted ; and through endless changing forms 



Of plant and bird and beast unceasingly 



The toiling ages wrought to fashion me. 



Lo, these lar^e ancestors have left a breath 



Of their strong souls in mine, defying death 



And change. I grow and blossom as the tree, 



And ever feel the deep-delving earthy roots 



Binding me daily to the common clay. 



But with its airy impulse upward shoots 



My life into the realms of light and day ; 



And thou, O Sea, stern mother of my soul, 



Thy tempests sing in me, thy billows roll ! 



in. 



A sacred kinship I would not forego 



Binds me to all that breathes ; through endless strife 



The calm and deathless dignity of life 



Unites each bleeding victim to its foe. 



What life is in its essence, who doth know ? 



The iron chain that all creation girds 



Encompassing myself and beasts and birds, 



Forges its bond unceasing from below 



From water, stone, and plant, e'en unto man. 



Within the rose a pulse that answered mine 



(Though hushed and silently its life-tide ran) 



I oft have felt ; but when with joy divine 



I hear the song-thrush warbling in my brain, 



I glory in this vast creation's chain. 



IV. 



I stood and gazed with wonder blent with awe 



Upon the giant footprints Nature left 



Of her primeval march in yonder cleft ; 



A fern-leaf's airy woof, a reptile's claw, 



In their eternal slumber there I saw 



In deftly-wrought sarcophagi of stone. 



What humid tempests, from rank forests blown, 



Whirled from its parent stem yon slender straw ? 



What scaly creature of a monstrous breed 



Bore yonder web-foot through the tepid tide ? 



Oh, what wide vistas thronged with mighty deed 



And mightier thought have here mine eyes descried !- 



