I HAVE found out a gift for my fair; I know where the fossils abound, Where the footprints of Aves declare The birds that once walked on the ground; O, come, and -- in technical speech -- We'll walk this Devonian shore, Or on some Silurian beach We'll wander, my love, evermore. I will show thee the sinuous track By the slow-moving annelid made, Or the Trilobite that, farther back, In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid. Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb, The Plesiosaurus embalmed; In his Oolitic prime and his bloom, -- Iguanodon safe and unharmed! You wished -- I remember it well, And I loved you the more for that wish -- For a perfect cystedian shell And a whole holocephalic fish. And O, if Earth's strata contains In its lowest Silurian drift, Or Palaeozoic remains The same, -- 't is your lover's free gift! Then come, love, and never say nay, But calm all your maidenly fears, We'll note, love, in one summer's day The record of millions of years; And though the Darwinian plan Your sensitive feelings may shock, We'll find the beginning of man, -- Our fossil ancestors in rock! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CITY VIGNETTE: RAIN AT NIGHT by SARA TEASDALE VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 10. STRESA by SARA TEASDALE MONADNOC by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE LOVE OF GOD by ELIZA SCUDDER SEVEN SAD SONNETS: 6. THE WANDERING ONE MAKES MUSIC by MARY REYNOLDS ALDIS |