Classic Poem

A son of earth, he probed and proved his stock,
Walking with giant footsteps, wise and free;
He searched out wisdom in her cloven rock,
He entered in the springs of ice and sea;
He conned her crystals and her ores of fire
For laws of change, dynamic as the sun;
Then, fraught with surge and scope of her desire,
Foretold the output of her living on.

A son of man, he built with faithful hands
New roads from hills of thought to humble hearts,
Highways to shop and farm and inland beach;
And now, when drifts the war-smoke from all lands,
Touched to still larger issues, he departs—
Even as his lips are moving to new speech.