Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/463

1845] is the only food of the gods, and inasmuch as we are partially divine we are compelled to respect it.

Tell me, ye wise ones, if ye can,

Whither and whence the race of man.

For I have seen his slender clan

Clinging to hoar hills with their feet,

Threading the forest for their meat.

Moss and lichens, bark and grain

They rake together with might and main,

And they digest them with anxiety and pain.

I meet them in their rags and unwashed hair,

Instructed to eke out their scanty fare—

Brave race—with a yet humbler prayer.

Beggars they are, aye, on the largest scale.

They beg their daily bread at heaven's door,

And if their this year's crop alone should fail,

They neither bread nor begging would know more.

They are the titmen of their race,

And hug the vales with mincing pace

Like Troglodytes, and fight with cranes.

We walk 'mid great relations' feet.

What they let fall alone we eat.

We are only able

To catch the fragments from their table.

These elder brothers of our race,

By us unseen, with larger pace

Walk o'er our heads, and live our lives,

Embody our desires and dreams,

Anticipate our hoped-for gleams.

We grub the earth for our food.