Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/317

Rh Of heifers,—why, what now

Such farm news as this!

You were here, when, what bliss!

Alpha dropt on our planet,

And we all ran to scan it:

How the soft thing, with silk down,

Had learned to bring milk down

Without any teaching,

Example, or preaching!

Not this is the news

From Four-Brooks Farm—

Nor the ice-pond built

Where Hermit Brook spilt;

Nor the great pine we found

Thunder-burst in the middle

And spread on the ground

Like the strings of a fiddle;

Not of this, not of that,—

Such news now were flat,—

But something far racier!

Muir, of Alaska,

Path-finder, cliff-basker,

Known of bird, known of deer

(Grizzlies know him, won't harm),

John Muir has been here,

And has hitched to the farm

A great blanket glacier!

Don't flout it! don't doubt it!

'T is as sure and as clear

As if on the rock,

With chisel and knock,

A giant of eld

His message had spelled,