And lift man’s public action to a height

Worthy the enormous cloud of witnesses,

When linked hemispheres attest his deed.

We have few moments in the longest life

Of such delight and wonder as there grew, –

Nor yet unsuited to that solitude:

A burst of joy, as if we told the fact

To ears intelligent; as if gray rock

And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know

This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind;

As if we men were talking in a vein

Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs,

And a prime end of the most subtle element

Were fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves!

Bend nearer, faint day-moon! Yon thundertops,

Let them hear well! ’t is theirs as much as ours.

A spasm throbbing through the pedestals

Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent,

Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill

To be a brain, or serve the brain of man.

The lightning has run masterless too long;

He must to school, and learn his verb and noun,

And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage,

Spelling with guided tongue man’s messages

Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea.

And yet I marked, even in the manly joy

Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat,

(Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent;

Or was it for mankind a generous shame,

As of a luck not quite legitimate,

Since fortune snatched from wit the lion’s part?

Was it a college pique of town and gown,

As one within whose memory it burned

That not academicians, but some lout,

Found ten years since the Californian gold?

And now, again, a hungry company

Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade,

Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools

Of science, not from the philosophers,

Had won the brightest laurel of all time.

’T was always thus, and will be; hand and head

Are ever rivals: but, though this be swift,

The other slow, – this the Prometheus,

And that the Jove, – yet, howsoever hid,

It was from Jove the other stole his fire,

And, without Jove, the good had never been.

It is not Iroquois or cannibals,

But ever the free race with front sublime,

And these instructed by their wisest too,

Who do the feat, and lift humanity.

Let not him mourn who best entitled was,

Nay, mourn not one: let him exult,

Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant,

And water it with wine, nor watch askance

Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit:

Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed.

We flee away from cities, but we bring

The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers,

Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.

We praise the guide, we praise the forest life;

But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore

Of books and arts and trained experiment,

Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz?

O no, not we! Witness the shout that shook

Wild Tupper Lake; witness the mute all-hail