In what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small Over wide earth’s teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl! Some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move, Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove; Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide, And through heaven’s ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide; These earth’s solid surface pressing, with firm paces onward rove, Ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in the woodland grove. Great and wondrous is their variance! Yet in all the head low-bent Dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different. Man alone, erect, aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies, And in upright posture steadfast seems earth’s baseness to despise.