Classic Poem

But Nature in her mood pushes or pulls
At her caprice; we see what is not shown
By that which we behold, nor this alone;
To commonest matters let us fix a bound
Or purport, straight another use is found
And this annihilates and that annuls.
And every straw of grass, or dirt, or stone,
Has different function from the kind well-known:
Commerce and custom, dikes and watermills.
Not to the sea alone, from inland earth,
The stream draws down its freight of floats and hulls,
But backward far, upwinding to the north,
The river gleams, a highway for the gulls
That fly not over land, into the hills.