 | The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman |  |
THE SKULL IN THE GOLD DRIFT
What ho! dumb jester, cease to grin and mask it!
Grim courier, thou hast stayed upon the road!
Yield up the secret of this battered casket,
This shard, where once a living soul abode!
What dost thou here? how long hast lain imbedded
In crystal sands, the drift of Time's despair;
Thine earth to earth with aureate dower wedded,
Thy parts all changed to something rich and rare?
Grim courier, thou hast stayed upon the road!
Yield up the secret of this battered casket,
This shard, where once a living soul abode!
What dost thou here? how long hast lain imbedded
In crystal sands, the drift of Time's despair;
Thine earth to earth with aureate dower wedded,
Thy parts all changed to something rich and rare?
Voiceless thou art, and yet a revelation
Of that most ancient world beneath the new;
But who shall guess thy race, thy name and station,
Æons and æons ere these bowlders grew?
What alchemy can make thy visage liker
Its untransmuted shape, thy flesh restore,
Resolve to blood again thy golden ichor,
Possess thee of the life thou hadst before?
Of that most ancient world beneath the new;
But who shall guess thy race, thy name and station,
Æons and æons ere these bowlders grew?
What alchemy can make thy visage liker
Its untransmuted shape, thy flesh restore,
Resolve to blood again thy golden ichor,
Possess thee of the life thou hadst before?
Before! And when? What ages immemorial
Have passed since daylight fell where thou dost sleep!
What molten strata, ay, and flotsam boreal,
Have shielded well thy rest, and pressed thee deep!
Thou little wist what mighty floods descended,
How sprawled the armored monsters in their camp,
Nor heardest, when the watery cyle ended,
The mastodon and mammoth o'er thee tramp.
Have passed since daylight fell where thou dost sleep!
What molten strata, ay, and flotsam boreal,
Have shielded well thy rest, and pressed thee deep!
Thou little wist what mighty floods descended,
How sprawled the armored monsters in their camp,
Nor heardest, when the watery cyle ended,
The mastodon and mammoth o'er thee tramp.
How seemed this globe of ours when thou didst scan it?
When, in its lusty youth, there sprang to birth
All that has life, unnurtured, and the planet
Was paradise, the true Saturnian Earth!
Far toward the poles was stretched the happy garden;
Earth kept it fair by warmth from her own breast;
Toil had not come to dwarf her sons and harden;
No crime (there was no want) perturbed their rest.
When, in its lusty youth, there sprang to birth
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Was paradise, the true Saturnian Earth!
Far toward the poles was stretched the happy garden;
Earth kept it fair by warmth from her own breast;
Toil had not come to dwarf her sons and harden;
No crime (there was no want) perturbed their rest.
How lived thy kind? Was there no duty blended
With all their toilless joy,—no grand desire?
Perchance as shepherds on the meads they tended
Their flocks, and knew the pastoral pipe and lyre;
Until a hundred happy generations,
Whose birth and death had neither pain nor fear,
At last, in riper ages, brought the nations
To modes which we renew who greet thee here.
With all their toilless joy,—no grand desire?
Perchance as shepherds on the meads they tended
Their flocks, and knew the pastoral pipe and lyre;
Until a hundred happy generations,
Whose birth and death had neither pain nor fear,
At last, in riper ages, brought the nations
To modes which we renew who greet thee here.
How stately then they built their royal cities,
With what strong engines speeded to and fro;
What music thrilled their souls; what poets' ditties
Made youth with love, and age with honor glow!
And had they then their Homer, Kepler, Bacon?
Did some Columbus find an unknown clime?
Was there an archetypal Christ, forsaken
Of those he died to save, in that far time?
With what strong engines speeded to and fro;
What music thrilled their souls; what poets' ditties
Made youth with love, and age with honor glow!
And had they then their Homer, Kepler, Bacon?
Did some Columbus find an unknown clime?
Was there an archetypal Christ, forsaken
Of those he died to save, in that far time?
When came the end? What terrible convulsion
Heaved from within the Earth's distended shell?
What pent-up demons, by their fierce repulsion,
Made of that sun-lit crust a sunless hell?
How, when the hour was ripe, those deathful forces
In one resistless doom o'erwhelmed ye all;
Ingulfed the seas and dried the river courses,
And made the forests and the cities fall!
Heaved from within the Earth's distended shell?
What pent-up demons, by their fierce repulsion,
Made of that sun-lit crust a sunless hell?
How, when the hour was ripe, those deathful forces
In one resistless doom o'erwhelmed ye all;
Ingulfed the seas and dried the river courses,
And made the forests and the cities fall!
Ah me! with what a sudden, dreadful thunder
The whole round world was split from pole to pole!
Down sank the continents, the waters under,
And fire burst forth where now the oceans roll;
Of those wan flames the dismal exhalations
Stifled, anon, each living creature's breath,
Dear life was driven from its utmost stations,
And seethed beneath the smoking pall of death!
The whole round world was split from pole to pole!
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And fire burst forth where now the oceans roll;
Of those wan flames the dismal exhalations
Stifled, anon, each living creature's breath,
Dear life was driven from its utmost stations,
And seethed beneath the smoking pall of death!
Then brawling leapt full height yon helmèd giants;
The proud Sierras on the skies laid hold;
Their watch and ward have bidden time defiance,
Guarding thy grave amid the sands of gold.
Thy kind was then no more! What untold ages,
Ere Man, renewed from earth by slow degrees,
Woke to the strife he now with Nature wages
O'er ruder lands and more tempestuous seas.
The proud Sierras on the skies laid hold;
Their watch and ward have bidden time defiance,
Guarding thy grave amid the sands of gold.
Thy kind was then no more! What untold ages,
Ere Man, renewed from earth by slow degrees,
Woke to the strife he now with Nature wages
O'er ruder lands and more tempestuous seas.
How poor the gold, that made thy burial splendid,
Beside one single annal of thy race,
One implement, one fragment that attended
Thy life—which now has left not even a trace!
From the soul's realm awhile recall thy spirit,
See how the land is spread, how flows the main,
The tribes that in thy stead the globe inherit,
Their grand unrest, their eager joy and pain.
Beside one single annal of thy race,
One implement, one fragment that attended
Thy life—which now has left not even a trace!
From the soul's realm awhile recall thy spirit,
See how the land is spread, how flows the main,
The tribes that in thy stead the globe inherit,
Their grand unrest, their eager joy and pain.
Beneath our feet a thousand ages moulder,
Grayer our skies than thine, the winds more chill;
Thine the young world, and ours the hoarier, colder,
But Man's unfaltering heart is dauntless still.
And yet—and yet like thine his solemn story;
Grope where he will, transition lies before;
We, too, must pass! our wisdom, works, and glory
In turn shall yield, and change, and be no more.
Grayer our skies than thine, the winds more chill;
Thine the young world, and ours the hoarier, colder,
But Man's unfaltering heart is dauntless still.
And yet—and yet like thine his solemn story;
Grope where he will, transition lies before;
We, too, must pass! our wisdom, works, and glory
In turn shall yield, and change, and be no more.
| The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman | |