Classic Poem

His elders think of Curlyhead's baby mind
As of a virgin leaf
Whereon the hours have been too brief
To leave one written character behind.

How would they tremble if they were to look
Within that tiny head
And find no blank page, but instead
The hieroglyphs of a most ancient book

Inscribed in curious, dim ancestral ink
By hands long laid to rest
When Pharaoh's oldest palimpsest
Was still papyrus blowing on Nile's brink.

There they could read a wordless battle-song
Older than human time,
Roared in the steaming jungle slime
By many a fanged and furry simian throng.

There are weird sounds of worship that sufficed
To tell the love of God
In uncouth fanes our fathers trod
Ten thousand years before the cross of Christ.