Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/321

 WEALTH

shall tell what did befall,

Far away in time, when once,

Over the lifeless ball,

Hung idle stars and suns?

What god the element obeyed?

Wings of what wind the lichen bore,

Wafting the puny seeds of power,

Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?

And well the primal pioneer

Knew the strong task to it assigned,

Patient through Heaven's enormous year

To build in matter home for mind.

From air the creeping centuries drew

The matted thicket low and wide,

This must the leaves of ages strew

The granite slab to clothe and hide,

Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.

What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled

(In dizzy æons dim and mute

The reeling brain can ill compute)

Copper and iron, lead and gold?

What oldest star the fame can save

Of races perishing to pave

The planet with a floor of lime?