Since the days when you were young;
It thinks quite different thoughts from then
And speaks with a different tongue.
The fences are broken, the cords are snapped
That fettered man's heart to home
He ranges free as the wind or wave,
And changes his shore like the foam.
He drives his furrows through fallow seas,
He reaps what the breakers sow,
And the flash of his iron flail is seen
Mid the barns of the barren snow.
He has lassoed the lightning and led it home,
He has yoked it unto his need,
And made it answer the rein, and trudge
As straight as the steer or steed.
He has bridled the torrents and made them tame,
He has bitted the champing tide,
It toils as his drudge and turns the wheels
That spin for his use and his pride.
He handles the planets and weighs their dust,
He mounts on the comet's car
And he lifts the veil of the sun,
And stares in the eyes of the uttermost star.