Page:Poems, Emerson, 1847.djvu/110

98 With heart of cat and eyes of bug,

Dull victim of his pipe and mug.

Wo is me for my hope's downfall!

Lord! is yon squalid peasant all

That this proud nursery could breed

For God's vicegerency and stead?

Time out of mind, this forge of ores;

Quarry of spars in mountain pores;

Old cradle, hunting-ground, and bier

Of wolf and otter, bear and deer;

Well-built abode of many a race;

Tower of observance searching space;

Factory of river and of rain;

Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;

By million changes skilled to tell

What in the Eternal standeth well,

And what obedient Nature can;—

Is this colossal talisman

Kindly to creature, blood, and kind,

And speechless to the master's mind?

I thought to find the patriots

In whom the stock of freedom roots: