While we sit safely in the city’s grime,
In old-world trammels of distress and crime,
Playing with words and thoughts, with doubts and fears.
Children of axe and gun! Ye take to-day
The baby steps of man’s first, feeblest age,
While we, thought-seekers of the printed page,
We lead the world down its untrodden way!
Ours the drear wastes and leagues of empty waves,
The lonely deaths, the undiscovered graves.