Oliver Evans, millwright meet,
Made the millstones grind the wheat;
Made the mills move fast with the meal,
Made, too early, the Automobile.
He was the first that glory won,
Mind and hand over Wilmington.

Robert Fulton taught the boat,
Fire-hearted, to throb and float;
Wheels of the watch and clock persuade
Him to think in the jeweler's trade;
So he thought till his dream reveals
All the universe needs are wheels.

Never Creation space could star
Till the orbits were circular.
Gravity out of its centre reels
Till the heavens and earth had wheels.
Ocean and blood are made up of spheres,
Iron melts into drops as it clears.

O, how long were mankind to see
Roundness was sire of eternity!
Flat to the Soul were the sea and land,
Revelation was in the Hand.

Guide me, Hand, to thy loving tryst!
Round are my eyes and the bones in my wrist;
Round is my skull, where I get the clues,
As in a keyboard, of all the news.

When the great Greeks their myths forgot,
They stood up in the Chariot;
So, ball-bearing, the future man
Will stand on his curves in the final plan.

Traction, attraction, they are kin;
Billows roll on the sphere they win.
Man at the wheel, with intelligence shod,
Carries along the labors as God.
Fulton and Evans! Names to revere!
What has transpired since ye were here?

High as we rise the prospect runs
Into expanding horizons.
Bubbles the engine to motion shake,
Currents electrical messengers make.
World without end the nights reveal—
All the Universe is a wheel!

This we learn from the Welch and Scot—
Fulton and Evans were sparks of Watt,
And their necessities crafts begun
In the bay heads about Wilmington.
Earth no periphery had to steer
Till it recovered our hemisphere.

Moses and Jesus, Mahoun and the rest
Knew not that spheredom was hid in the West.
Limping, the Earth skipped on hoofs, like Pan,
Till turned its beautiful curves into Man.
Bow in the Heavens alarms the worm,
But is the Light's and the Raindrop's form.