NEBULA TO MAN 
Across the line another continent 
In promise looms, as yet by waters rent 
To numerous banks and isles. Still here and there 
Some upheaved breadths of wide extent appear, 
Where stretch to-day Brazil's great mountain chains 25 
Of crumpled rock, and high and fruitful plains. 
And through the world a warm soft climate rolls, 
Whose genial airs reach even to the poles. 
Forefathers of a great posterity, 
Sea-weeds abound where shallow flows the sea. 30 
Clinging to mud and rock sea-sponges grow, 
Fed by the ocean-currents' ingathered flow. 
Jelly-fish translucent are floating past, 
With phosphorous gleaming through the watery waste. 
Corals are here ; and fleshy graptolites 35 
Small trunks of life, with flower-like polypites. 
Small box-like cystoids, clad in plates of lime, 
And tiny stalked, are clinging to the slime. 
Sea-worms innumerous swell the living band ; 
Their burrows boring in the mud and sand. 40 
And here and there, enclosed in double shells, 
" Lamp-shells " are massed, soft, wormy animals. 
And other shelly worms are in the floods 
Mussels resembling. Sea-snail gastropods 
In cap-like shells are here : and some with feet 45 
For swimming formed up to the surface beat ; 
12 
