Meter 31

Thou may’st know, if thou wilt notice,
That many creatures of various kinds
Fare over earth with unlike motions,
With gait and colour quite diverse,
And aspects also of endless kinds,

Queer and common. Some creep and crawl
With all their body bound to the ground ;
No wings them help ; on feet they walk not,
Nor pace the earth, as was them appointed.
Some on two feet fare o’er the ground,
Some are four-footed ; some in flight
Wing ’neath the clouds. Yet each creature
Is drooping earthward, stooping downward,
On the ground looking, longing for earth,
Some need-driven, some through greed.

Man only goeth of all God’s creatures
With gait upright, gazing upwards.
This is a token that he shall turn
His trust and his mind more up than down,
To the heavens above, lest he bend his thoughts
Like beasts earthward. It is not meet
That the mind of a mortal should remain below
While his face he holdeth up to heaven.