Poets affect, that when the Earth was young
All Nature's works were beautiful and bright,
That Planets in their spheres harmonious sung
Like Seraphs--joining in celestial flight;
That flowers bloomed in one eternal spring,
Scenting with luscious sweets the ambient air,
That life was luxury, and pain a thing
Not meant for man, but spirits of despair.
Lady! it was not so--the world was rude--
Behold the proof in Mantell's strange narration:[1]
Its form, and elements, and fabric crude,
And REPTILES were the "Lords of the Creation:"
O! ingrate man! bethink thee of thy fate,
Had thy Creator called thee then to being
And left thee to the chances of a fate
Beyond all bearing--hearing--feeling--seeing!
Then lumbered o'er the rugged Earth strange forms,
Misshapen--huge--gigantic--living wonders--
Howling fit chorus to discordant storms,
That, like a thousand Ætnas, crashed in thunders.
Cleaving the dismal sky, with rushing sound
Appalling monsters hurl their cumbrous length,
And through the murky sea, in depths profound,
Gambolled Leviathans in mighty strength.
What thinks Philoclea of the pristine Earth?
Believ'st thou Nature smiled at such beginning?
If those huge occupants inclined to mirth,
Their's was an age of awful ugly grinning!
The seaman's figure of a seventy-four
Showing her teeth--her guns in triple tiers--
Were no hyperbole in days of yore,
Howe'er extravagant it now appears.
[Footnote 1: See the Edinburg Philosophical Journal and the 21st No.
of Silliman's Journal, for some account of the Geological Age of
Reptiles, by Gideon Mantell, Esq. F.R.S. &c. &c.]
For the Southern Literary Messenger.