The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Vailima ed.)/Volume 8/New Poems/Men marvel at the works of man
CLXXI
MEN marvel at the works of man
And with unstinted praises sing
The greatness of some worldly thing
Encompassed during one life's span;
An empire built, kingdom born.
And straightway men sound man's own horn.
The human brain's a wondrous work,
So chant the sages and the deans—
Those thought and labour go-betweens,
Who ever life's deep mysteries shirk.
A steel ribbed ship, an engine new—
Ah, mighty things strong man doth do!
Man rears great piles of chiselled stone,
And builds across the roaring streams,
And tunnels mountains while he dreams
Of sterner tasks to do alone.
'Tis I, he says, these things have wrought—
Through darkness to the heights I've fought.
But comes a time when in his might
The man of sceptre or of gold
Is laid upon the marble cold,
And soul within takes hurried flight.
The wondrous man is but a clod
As lowly as the earth he trod.
Far in the realm of the unknown
A little light has found its way
A flicker in the newer day
That hallows round a Godly throne;
Once housed in the Eternal Land
The light perceives the Master Hand.