Classic Poem

The fossil and the reptiles spore
Iguanadon and dinosaur
In limestone lockers stratified,
They too, they too have prophesied.
The first abysmal roar
From life's preliminary murk
Spoke with much meaning to man's work
Ten million years before.

When matter and immortal soul
Were kneaded in one mixing bowl
And the warm planetary mud
Writhed into form and flesh and blood
And monstrous leaf and bowl,
Their brute and bestial magnitude
All kind and gentler things subdued,
Lords of a world of coal.

They tore the bud of all the earth,
Her tender life that came to birth,
Her unprotected treasures,
The Spirit's naissant palaces
They ravened without dearth
And waxed, until the little things
With nimble feet and flitting wings
Slew mastodons for mirth.

So passed they; in their old domains
The bony monument remains
And says " To Earth's immense supplies
We brought gigantic enterprise and miniature brains. "