Boast not, poor man, that thou hast measured time,
And named it feeble seven thousand years,
Lest all the lore and wit of all thy seers
Must brand thee fool, and name thy folly _crime_.
I say that I have seen an eon's rime
Upon thy father's head, and bitter tears,
Quintillions old. And countless fears,
Remembered from an old world's mapless clime.
Nor call thy folly old,--'twas surely born
When thou didst cease to think. Thou hast a child,
Whose beauty brands thee for a thing forsworn.
Leave thou its tender reason undefiled!
For shame to chain the base of all thy glory,
Upon an olden tale, a useless allegory!