Explore "Progress" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There is no progress in the world of bees, / However wise and wonderful they are. / Their wisdom makes not increase. Lies the bar, / To wider goals, in that tense strife to please / A Sovereign Ruler? Forth from flowers to trees / Their little quest is; not from star to star. / This is not growth; the mighty avatar / Comes not to do his work with such as these.
So in the world of men; when legions toil / To feed a Monarch, and begem a crown, / They build before high heaven a narrowing wall / And the great purpose of Creation spoil. / Not on, and upward, is the trend, but down; / The Race can rise but with the rise of all.