EOCENE PERIOD 
Tale-telling stores in unknown rocks may lie, 
Ungathered links in Life's long history : 20 
These seeking wide, Man may in time obtain, 
And mend what is, to him, a broken chain. 
While bursts a scene as bolt shot from the blue, 
As startling nigh is what is lost to view. 
For creatures that for long had ranged abroad 25 
Have vanished quite, swept wholesale from the board. 
No signs of Dinosaurians can we trace, 
Triceratops is missed from his " accustomed place " ; 
Brontosaurs and Stegosaurs too are gone ; 
And of like monstrous brutes we find not one. 30 
Plesiosaurs have fled, as vessels might from shore 
Put out to sea, and vanish evermore. 
No flying lizards through the welkin sweep, 
And Icthyosaurs lie lifeless in the deep. 
All, all are gone, though be it in their day 35 
Lords of creation were they in their way. 
But other groups of life have ceased to be 
As well as Earth's old aristocracy. 
Plebeian orders too have -had to bow, 
And families of these have vanished now. 40 
The Ammonoids, though strove they to conform 
To coming change, could not ride out the storm. 
Though still indeed, in limits close drawn in, 
A few old shipwrecked forms may still be seen. 
IOI 
