Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/306

 COMPENSATION

wings of Time are black and white,

Pied with morning and with night.

Mountain tall and ocean deep

Trembling balance duly keep.

In changing moon and tidal wave

Glows the feud of Want and Have.

Gauge of more and less through space,

Electric star or pencil plays,

The lonely Earth amid the balls

That hurry through the eternal halls,

A makeweight flying to the void,

Supplemental asteroid,

Or compensatory spark,

Shoots across the neutral Dark.

Man 's the elm, and Wealth the vine;

Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:

Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,

None from its stock that vine can reave.

Fear not, then, thou child infirm,

There 's no god dare wrong a worm;

Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,

And power to him who power exerts.

Hast not thy share? On winged feet,

Lo! it rushes thee to meet;