Kalevala, old and hoary,

Æneid, Iliad, Æsop, too,

All are filled with strange quaint legends,

All replete with ancient tales,—

How love came, and how old earth,

Freed from chaos, grew for us,

To a green and wondrous spheroid,

To a home for things alive;

How fierce fire and iron cold,

How the snow and how the frost,—

All these things the old rhymes ring,

All these things the old tales tell.

Yet they ne'er sang of the beginning,

Of that great unbreathing angel,

Of that soul without a haven,

Of that gracious Lady Bountiful,

Yet they ne'er told how it came here;

[Pg 73]

Ne'er said why we read it daily,

Nor did they even let us guess why

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