Classic Poem

Man mistakes the thud of his feet
For the irresistible rolling of the spheres.
He is willing the Great Mother
Should go about her work freely in his body,
Casting out the poisons which would destroy him,
But he is not willing she should as freely
Purge the social body of those poisons which destroy it.
Even the beasts accept the impenetrabilities
Of infallible Nature;
But Man has substituted an image of himself,
To which he offers prayers and petty bribes,
Begging it to modify those edicts which lit
The fires of Creation,
Guide the stars in their wandering,
And shape the crystal orbs of rain,
Not caring if the fields have sinned,
And, tenderly as the spawn of Man,
Nurse the silver spawn of herring
Amid the brown and undulant seaweed.

Nature claims no authority and invokes no force.
She seems deaf, but her deafness is wisdom.
She seems blind, but her blindness is vision.
She seems cruel, but her cruelty is mercy.
The merciless mother is merciful as a mother.
She keepeth the race.