Classic Poem

With sleepless toil on land and wave,
A Giant served a Master wise;
This Giant seem'd a simple slave,
But was a Genie in disguise.

His voice was power, his breath was speed;
He gathered distance in his hands;
And in his track Time sow'd his seed
With double hours and swifter sands.

The Elements with whom he fought
And wrestled in his youthful wars,
Began, beholding all he wrought,
To feel a mightier will than theirs.

A mightier will, and one more firm
Of purpose, never turned aside;
With gentleness to spare the worm,
And strength to pluck the roots of pride.

The hearth, that was his place of birth,
With tenderness he loved, and coursed
The boundaries of the love-link'd earth
To do the missions it enforced.

And over oceans, rocks, and straits,
He flew; and in his arms he closed
The nations; till their warring fates
On one united faith reposed.

Well pleased the Master then beheld
A work that made him feel divine;
With majesty his bosom swell'd,
And thence he mused a dark design.

" Am I not guide where'er he goes?
The ship hangs on the helmsman's skill;
From me the pilot impulse flows;
The Giant shall obey my will. "

He in the Giant's youth had fear'd
The wild rebounding of his might;
And oft he trembled as he steer'd
To meet the terrors of his sight.

But now that use has conquered dread,
His tyrant spirits grow awake, —
So, on a day, he hail'd, and led
The Giant to his throne, and spake: —

" Thou see'st a region at thy feet;
'Tis threatened by each hostile wind
That blows from lands with foes replete,
And these are children of my kind.

" Thou, therefore, go, I charge thee, forth,
And gathering in thy forces all,
Disperse thyself, till South and North
And East and West before me fall.

" In ways and means I know thee strong,
For thou art Force, and therefore hast
Dominion over Right and Wrong,
And over all things — but the Past.

" Go! " but the Giant stirr'd no step;
His dark eyes flash'd, and trembling light
Electric ran across his lip,
And o'er his forehead hung with night.

White clouds wrapt round his rising form,
Where lightnings shot like veins of fire;
And with a voice like coming storm,
He answer'd from his smoke-wreath'd spire.

" O Master! as thy Slave I serve,
And work thy will in love and awe,
And from thy will I cannot swerve,
While thou obey'st thy higher Law.

" But know that, when thou fail'st to heed
That Law which is the Lord of thee,
And turnest to revenge and greed,
Thou art no longer Lord of me.

" It is my mission to create;
A mission I fulfil with joy:
Yet blackly am I arm'd by fate
With equal powers to destroy.

" Creation and Destruction, now
Are wrestling for the regal world;
And one must conquer, one must bow,
Which side soever I am hurl'd.

" Behold! I wait upon thy breath
To make thee blest, or most accurst;
But should'st thou bid me reap for Death
His victims — Thou wilt be the first. "