Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/110

 SOLUTION.

AM the Muse who sung alway

By Jove, at dawn of the first day.

Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought

To fire the stagnant earth with thought:

On spawning slime my song prevails,

Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales;

Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn,

Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born.

Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race,

And Nile substructs her granite base,—

Tented Tartary, columned Nile,—

And, under vines, on rocky isle,

Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak,

Forward stepped the perfect Greek: