NEBULA TO MAN 
PRE-PAL.EOZOIC AGES 
A GLOWING mist, through realms ot space unbounded, 
Whirls on its way, by starry hosts surrounded. 
Dim is its lustre, as compared with theirs, 
And more the look of stars dissolved it wears. 
Volumes of heat, from its prodigious stores, 5 
To endless space, it never ceasing pours. 
Formless and void it seems, and yet it holds 
A coming world within its hazy folds. 
A sun lies spread within its depths and heights ; 
Planets are there, and all their satellites. 10 
But still as yet they lie confused and blent, 
Like starry dust, lost in the firmament. 
Have some old burnt-out stars, once big and bright, 
Recovered by collision heat and light ? 
Have some old worlds, that long at rest had lain, 1 5 
Been rudely roused to run a course again ? 
* 
A 
