88 LINES ON A FOSSIL TREE. 



Hast thou no tongue, no speech ? Thou " must be read." 

 Then now I cleave thee with this steel and maul ; 

 Thou should'st have stood in learned hall instead 

 Thou wilt ? Then speak, old stock ! We listen all. 



" Call me not old : I'm but of yesterday. 

 Deep rocks below long ancestry imbed. 

 ' Paternal or maternal/ do you say ? 

 Our kind no sexes knows : we're better bred : 



Nor call me Calamite, ill-omen'd name ! 

 Stigmaria if you like, but that's my root. 

 You mean no stigma ! but if all the same, 

 These seal's would Sigillaria better suit. 



But pardon, thou of brow and eye of thought ! 

 I scarce can tell you whence my native soil, 

 But there profuse plants of primeval sort 

 Gigantic sprung, nor needed care or toil. 



Around that land stretched ocean clear and deep, 

 And gently rippled on the sparkling shore : 

 There coral-polyp built the atoll steep, 

 And pearly conch and clam bedeckt its floor ; 



And there I flourished ; like an orient fan 



My branches spread ; lofty and straight, like beam 



Of setting sun : his com'se as now he ran, 



But seldom through the gloomy shades could beam. 



My life a pleasant dose, all undisturbed, 



Save by the hum of insect, or the splash 



Of megalichthys, or more rare perturbed 



By glare from that far peak with quake or crash. 



