NEBULA TO MAN 
Now is the mantled ground the happy home 
Of busy insect life ; where plant-lice roam, 
And seek in stem and leaf their juicy foods, 180 
And people leafy lairs with countless broods. 
Here too cockchafer-looking creatures come, 
And freely leaves and lice alike consume. 
Scorpions, with near relations in the sea 
(The source and font of much land life to be) 1 85 
Are also here : and armed with claws and stings 
Become with facile steps terrestrial kings. 
But life on land pursues a chequered course, 
As Law holds on its way, without remorse. 
The shrinking crust to coast-lines oft brings change, 1 90 
And land and sea their frontiers rearrange. 
Here slowly rise breadths proud with hill and plain, 
There others slowly sink beneath the main : 
And vast and cherished growths their bosoms bear, 
Though fair and full of promise, disappear. 195 
Yet oft their higher grounds escape the fate 
And stand as arks, charged with a precious freight. 
But though in parts seems Nature's work undone ; 
Yet through her realms does progress ever run. 
And though her laws may all unchanging seem, 200 
The Law of Progress is her law supreme. 
