 |
|
 | Drifted in |  |
97
Endowed by an old man long since dead,
Whose farm had mounds: and who long had dreamed
Of their dust tenants, until it seemed
To him almost that those hosts might be
A part of his own ancestral tree.
And in his visions he “stocked” that farm
With city splendors of ancient date:
The warrior's valor, the virgin's charm,
The emperor, sitting in gilded state;
And, digging and digging within a mound
Where he strange traces of them had found,
And sinking shafts long distances more,
Their possible cellarage to explore,
Thus hoping there yet might records be
That now America first should see,
He struck—not records, but oil! that old
Yet newly discovered liquid gold
Came spouting, as if those spirit-strays
From mound-men—history's castaways—
Had brought him a gift. It came—to spare!
In lake-fulls—calling the thrifty there,
By scores and hundreds. He urged them back,
And strove to cumber their eager track:
But what can hinder the headlong rush
Of money for money? 'twill blight and crush
The loveliest view that the fancy feeds.
Brain cannot cope with primitive needs.
His phantom city, 'mid this turmoil,
Was inundated with modern oil;
This haunt of the knights and armored hosts
Was now a camp of prosperity,
98
In unimpeachable verity.
So, spite of himself, our peasant there,
Became twice over a millionaire,
But lost his great grand city. His dreams
Of ancient splendor, soaked through with streams
Of modern oleaginous thrift,
Were now on the seas of wealth adrift,
And he was drear and unsatisfied:
And, weary and poor, this Crœsus died.
His will a professorship endowed,
With a “large” college, in his name,
To teach Moundology, as the proud
Astronomer Watson, wreathed with fame,
Left money forever to be employed
In tracing the route of each asteroid
He had discovered.—Our millionaire
Put into this paid professor's care
The mounds of our country; and willed that he
Their champion and historian be,
And lecture to students, upon the ways
Of men of the unrecorded days.
| Drifted in | |