Numberless are the world's wonders
but none
More wonderful than man;
the storm-grey sea
Yields to his prows
the huge crests bear him high
Earth, holy and inexhaustible,
is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year
the timeless labor of stallions
The lightboned birds and beasts that cling to cover
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind
The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned
Resign to him
and his blunt yoke has broken
The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.
Words also
and thought as rapid as air
He fashions to his good use
statecraft is his
And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow
The spears of winter rain
from every wind
He has made himself secure–from all but one
In the late wind of death he cannot stand.
O clear intelligence
force beyond all measure!
O fate of man
working both good and evil!
When the laws are kept
how proudly his city stands!
When the laws are broken
what of his city then?
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth
Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts.
