Classic Poem

Change blots out change,—their very memory dies,
Yet dim traditions of extinguished years
Over oblivion's gloomy gulf arise,
A sky's first rainbow on the flood's last tears:
Glimpses of old creations greet our eyes,
Lost Pleiads' symphonies salute our ears,
With some Hesperian or Atlantic rhyme,
Shedding faint twilight on the depths of Time !

This world now new was once perhaps the old,—
Oldest of all not utterly forgot,—
For giant Mammoths a luxuriant fold,
Monsters that were of earth, and now are not,—
Sauri, that both on land and ocean rolled,—
Leviathan, Hydrargos, Behemot,
Titanic tortoises, Cyclopean trees,—
All that Geology obscurely sees.
Enough!—too much—of this!—'t is but a dream
That might provoke the pity of the wise,
And cynic's sneer. Return we to our theme,
Our country's plains, lakes, rivers, woods, and skies;
Her mountain-cataract and ocean-stream,
And Nature's solitude, so dear to eyes
That, looking upon man too close and long,
Are sick of power, guilt, fraud, and force, and wrong.