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Too vast the subject ! and too great the song ! 

 For feeble Muse, that ambles still, along 

 Inferior strata of poetic skies, 

 Eager to soar, but helpless still to rise 

 And pipes on tenuous reed, to friendly ear, 

 Capricious notes, unheard as yet, but near : 

 Nor sounds sonorous bass, nor can prolong 

 The measured numbers of continuous song : 

 Nor asks a poet s name, nor seeks the bay ; 

 Humble the theme, and humbler still her lay 

 The OYSTER ! 



I SING THE OYSTER ! (Virgin theme !) 



King of Molluscules ! Ancient of the stream ! 



Thy birth was Time s soon as th affrighted 



world, 



A quivering mass, in space immense was hurled 

 In darkness cradled mid chaos nursed 

 Tumultuous ! Ambiguous, till burst 

 Thy unctuous beauty on a world where none 

 Could know thy merit ; there, alone 

 Thou pined st forlorn, mid mud and flood and 



slime, 

 Ere man came on the stage, far in the time 



Cosmogenetical. 



