Classic Poem

What is Man that he should oppose himself to Nature,
Or exalt himself above the laws by which
She seeks perfection?
To one standing upon the promontory of a star,
Are not the ants and bees as precious as man?
Their knowledge admirable?
Nature is wonderful in the infinity of her largeness;
The infinity of her smallness.
A clod of the field as mysterious as a star,
Nay a part of it,
And a grain of dust as marvellous as a mountain.
The trees, grasses, fruits and vari-colored flowers,
Are from the dust — and Man and all that lives;
Particles of earth and water quickened by the sun.
Mud made fertile by the sperm of the great god.
Clay breathed on by a deity.
The same matter and the same spirit used
Over and over — the wheel forever revolving,
Continually ascending and descending, returning to the source.
The weeds have the benignant care of the Mother
As perfectly as the wide-spreading oak and lofty fir,
The children of men not any more her solicitude
Than the babies of the beetle
Which tenderly she feeds in their dark
And earthy lodging.
She holds the suns lightly between her fingers,
Yet delights in atoms our eyes cannot see.
The ant-hill as dear to her as a city.
Yea, dearer, for the little folk know
Willing co-operation — justice.
These curious architects will yet build
In the streets of the proudest city,
If the city find not that justice which is equality.
Nature has established eternal conditions,
Leaving all free to seek life or death;
But the way of the transgressor is death.
She governs nothing;
Commands nothing;
Enforces nothing but leaves each
The free architect of his destiny.
How then shall the smallest soul
Be governed by another — even the largest?
The things unseen destroy the body
And the things unseen destroy the soul.
The invisible microbes are our destroyers more dangerous
Than tigers or armies.
We live and die upon a world our eyes see not,
Yet we are eager to control the life of another.