Louisa Parsons (Stone) Hopkins (1834–1895)

O’ER the gray boulder seamed and scarred by time

My searching thought its questioning thread would wind,

The secret of these crevices to find,

Lettered in creeping lichen’s crusting rime.

And while I trace each deep mysterious line

Of subtle force that shaped the cleavage grand

And fitted block to block with master-hand

I read the hieroglyphs of thought divine:

Record of æons by God’s finger graved;

Of fire and glacier, crystallizing laws,

Atoms obedient to a central cause,

All patient power for endless purpose saved;—

I, but one grain of dust upon earth’s sphere,

Make altar of the rock and worship here.