GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 77 



"Ten million thunderbolts with jagged points 

 Have penetrated through and through its joints. 

 It yet defies its old, immortal foes, 

 And tranquilly receives their puny blows. 

 Yet will the potent princes of the air 

 This two-crowned monarch into atoms tear : 



"The frost will flake, the ice will grind and grate, 

 The lightning decompose and dissipate: 

 The winds will etch it, solvent rains descend : 

 Though rock, on rock foundation, it will end. 

 It will be moved — yet not through human faith. 

 But consciousless, persistent, certain, scathe — 



"And in the sea be cast, in time to be — 

 That Time will be — Time is Eternity. 

 Then will this prairie have been scraped and scored — ■ 

 Perhaps below the ocean's level lowered: 

 No continent forever will endure; 

 No star or moving planet is secure. 



" The Universe, in every part, will change; 

 Yet, not a whit from Nature will estrange ; 

 Nor can there be what can annihilate 

 The potencies and portions that create 

 The forms that are (though forms that are shall flit), 

 For force and matter are the Infinite." 



