Who made the first wheels in the ages past? They were surely not light, nor handsome, nor fast. They were only rough cuts of a hollow log, And they jerked through the wilderness, jog, jog, jog; But barrows and carts and carriages grand, And big locomotives that conquer the land, Bicycles, steamboats, and automobiles, Were all, and far more, in that first pair of wheels. Yet where lived the inventor, and what was his name? Not the least whisper is hinted by fame. Statues we raise to thousands of men, Heroes admired of the sword or the pen, But none of them all is so worthy as he Who cut the first wheels from the trunk of a tree. And, pondering this, I've been thinking that now Some shy little fellow with deep-dreaming brow May be living among us, unknown to us all, Looking hard at some tree that has happened to fall, With a brain that can think and a heart that can feel, And contriving, for all of creation, -- a wheel! "He has wheels in his head," the neighbors will say, But all men will ride on those wheels some day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RETIRED CAT by WILLIAM COWPER EPITAPH ON S.P., A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL by BEN JONSON THE POET AND HIS BOOK by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 3. TO THE CUCKOO by MARK AKENSIDE TO THE HONOURABLE AND VIRTUOUS LADY, THE LADY TASBURGH by WILLIAM BASSE TIME'S CHANGES, FR. THE ART OF POLITICS by JAMES BRAMSTON THE HERON BALLADS: 1. FIRST BALLAD IN THROAT by ROBERT BURNS |