Impatient of the tardy axe and oar,
Life clothes her tender flesh in toiling steel,
And like a broken mist the years reveal
The unascended heights that wait before.
Matter that was the king is king no more,
And we, released from that despotic heel,
Go up against the sun on slanting keel,
As men that crawled like ants like falcons soar.
How great those altitudes they do not know
Who see far upward their eternal snow,
And dream to join the eagles of their dome.
O valiant hearts, O you that take such wings
Above the humble heritage of things
Remember that the earth at last is home!
-- George Sterling was a California transcendental poet, born this day in 1869.
