Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars, Familiar faces of the telescope, We sped, while on the last confines of space, The City lay with golden halo girt. The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth; And far enough to take a hemisphere At single glance, we paused. The little globe Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast, With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life; Thus trundling on its journey round the sun While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites. As rustic lad, who visits some great town, Returns ashamed of humble country home, So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought Was once so great. The Angel pointed down, And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth! Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls Himself the measure of the Universe! Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms The largest white one, see, is laboring now Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span; What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom That drifts along the ripples of a brook! Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone; The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow. See, there are railroad lines, what works of art! Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks, But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps Across the landscape like a score of ants Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor. ’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis! Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength; Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom, Where towering domes defy the touch of Time, And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord, Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes-- One little gap of Earth, and not a spire Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth. And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds, They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws; He conquers gravity, and dares to fly! The speck-like globe slow rises in the air, While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!” How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads, And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea; When ships must rescue Man, the king of air! “He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry; His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top, That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.