Leather Leggings

 THEY have taken the ball of earth
 and made it a little thing.


They were held to the land and horses;
 they were held to the little seas.

They have changed and shaped and welded;
 they have broken the old tools and made
 new ones; they are ranging the white
 scarves of cloudland; they are bumping
 the sunken bells of the Carthaginians
 and Phœnicians:
 they are handling
 the strongest sea
 as a thing to be handled.


The earth was a call that mocked;
 it is belted with wires and meshed with
 steel; from Pittsburg to Vladivostok is
 an iron ride on a moving house; from
 Jerusalem to Tokyo is a reckoned span;
 and they talk at night in the storm and
 salt, the wind and the war.


They have counted the miles to the Sun
 and Canopus; they have weighed a small
 blue star that comes in the southeast
 corner of the sky on a foretold errand.


We shall search the sea again.

We shall search the stars again.

There are no bars across the way.

There is no end to the plan and the clue,
 the hunt and the thirst.

The motors are drumming, the leather leggings
 and the leather coats wait:
 Under the sea
 and out to the stars
 we go.

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