THE MICROSCOPE. 



Men beheld thee from afar 



Starting hke a falHng star, 



Heard thy roar, and watched thy flight, 



Rushing through the red-Ut night. 



Such the fury of thy speed. 

 They had barely time to heed, 

 AVith wild eyes to gaze and hark, 

 Thou hadst fallen, and all was dark. 



Half in fiery trains consumed, 

 Through the fault which they illumed. 

 Scared, encrusted, scarred and rent. 

 Here at last thou liest spent. 



With all objects strange and rare, 

 Brought from ocean, earth and air, 

 Grouped in this historic hall, 

 Thou the strangest of them all! 



Art thou of that swarm of stars 

 Which, beyond the ring of Mars, 

 Through the path of one destroyed, — 

 Thou a small strayed asteroid ? 



To this tranquil resting-place, 

 From some ocean spilled in space. 

 On some old dismantled world, 

 Through what unknown cycles whirled ! 



Was the orb of which thou art 

 But this rude, imperfect part, 

 Furnished and arrayed as ours, 

 Fanned by winds and swept by showers ? 



Were there mountains there, and trees ? 

 Islands set in azure seas ? 

 Curving waves, whose forming crest 

 Broke in beauty on thy breast? 



And did life, upon that sphere, 

 Mount in myriad forms as here. 

 By the same eternal laws. 

 Pulsing from one Primal Cause ? 



