There's none to tell you about my birth,
For I am as old as the big, round earth.
The children of men arise, and pass
Out of the world, like blades of grass;
And many foot that on me has trod
Is gone from sight, and under the sod!
I am a Pebble! but who art _thou_,
Rattling along from the restless bough?"

The Acorn was shocked at this rude salute,
And lay for a moment abashed and mute:
She never before had been so near
This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere;
And she felt for a time at loss to know
How to answer a thing so coarse and low.
But to give reproof of a nobler sort
Than the angry look, or the keen retort,
At length she said, in a gentle tone,
"Since it has happened that I am thrown,
From the lighter element where I grew,
Down to another, so hard and new,
And beside a personage so august,
Abased, I'll cover my head with dust,
And quick retire from the sight of one
Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,
Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel
Has ever subdued, or made to feel!"
And soon in the earth she sank away
From the cheerless spot where the Pebble lay.