The Fossil Elephant

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The earth is old! Six thousand years

Are gone since I had birth

In the forests of the olden time,

And the solitudes of earth.

We were a race of mighty things

The world was all our own.

I dwelt with the Mammoth large and strong,

And the giant Mastodon.

No ship went over the waters then,

No ship with oar or sail

But the wastes of the sea were habited By the Dragon and the Whale

And the Hydra down in the ocean caves Abode,

a creature grim

And the scaled Serpents huge and strong

Coiled up in the waters dim.

The wastes of the world were all our own

A proud, imperial lot!

Man had not then dominion given,

Or else we knew it not.

There was no city on the plain

No fortress on the hill

No mighty men of strength, who came

With armies up, to kill.

There was no iron then, no brass

No silver and no gold

The wealth of the world was in its woods,

And its granite mountains old.

And we were the kings of all the world

We knew its breadth and length

We dwelt in the glory of solitude,

And the majesty of strength.

But suddenly came an awful change!

Wherefore, ask not of me

That it was, my desolate being shews,

Let that suffice for thee.

The Mammoth huge and the Mastodon

Were buried beneath the earth

And the Hydra and the Serpents strong,

In the caves where they had birth!

There is now no place of silence deep,

Whether on land or sea

And the Dragons lie in the mountain-rock,

As if for eternity!

And far in the realms of thawless ice,

Beyond each island shore,

My brethren lie in the darkness stern

To awake to life no more!

And not till the last conflicting crash

When the world consumes in fire,

Will their frozen sepulchres be loosed,

And their dreadful doom expire!