Classic Poem

The Lord gave Water quite a good-sized start —
Three-fourths of this world's homestead for its part;
But lawyers are not needed to convince
That Water has been losing ever since.
The reason is not hard to understand:
For God's most knowing creatures live on land,
And, naturally, every chance they get,
Find some new means to keep them from the wet,
The farms their dikes have from the ocean won;
The ground men make to build their cities on;
The bridge that from the river shelters me;
The ships — great travelling bridges of the sea —
All are an effort of ambitious man
To make this world as solid as he can.

These thoughts, to-day, all through my mind would run,
While looking at a bridge they've just got done,
Which takes a man, dry-shod, from shore to shore —
A matter of a good long mile or more.
I can't describe it; but I'll let the papers
(Who tell some truth, 'mid all their fancy capers)
To my old scrap-book give of it a taste
(What I can't do with ink I'll do with paste).