PRE-PAL.EOZOIC AGES 
Now can the surface, thickened, well retain 
The torrent showers of long-suspended rain, 85 
Which from condensing clouds are falling fast, 
And flooding far and wide the crusty waste. 
And on and on the water slowly gains, 
The hollows hiding, and the lower plains. 
But chiefly in the southern hemisphere, 90 
Where lies the crust more deeply sunk, appear 
The vaster volumed floods : for in the north 
Stretches of land, high thrust, are standing forth : 
And, 'mid the risings of the turbid sea 
That steams around, retain their mastery. 95 
Thus from a vague, diffused, and glimmering haze, 
That hung a chaos in the realms of space, 
A core, detached, in time has come to be 
A shapely orb, endowed with land and sea. 
The world is made ; and a wild world it is ; 100 
A world of land-breadths, crumpled, verdureless ; 
A world of heavy mists and fume and steam, 
Through which the sun-rays vainly strive to gleam ; 
A world of restless, turbid, steaming seas ; 
A world of hissing, roaring revelries ; 105 
A world of sea and land at constant strife ; 
A world whose heat forbids the rise of life. 
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