EOCENE PERIOD 
For life will ever slowly tend to lose 
All Nature's gifts, which are not put to use. 
What may these creatures fleet and Fox-sized be, 
That, little-armed, may find it best to flee 125 
Than face and fight a well-armed enemy ? 
Mixed forms they are : yet maybe hold the place 
Of founders humble of the equine race. 
Some Lemur-looking forms are in the glades, 
Small active creatures, keen in nightly raids 130 
On birds and reptiles ; and on insect hosts, 
(Sure victims, through all time, of holocausts). 
Strikes Nature here a path, where will arise 
The crown and triumph of her enterprise ? 
Whence came these various beasts now on the stage, 135 
So much advanced on those that in the Age 
Before were roaming here ? One might surmise 
Them sprung from earth, or fallen from the skies, 
So sudden are they come. Where may we find 
Forms intermediate, that will serve to bind, 140 
And link them with the forms that met our eyes 
The Age before ? For these remote allies 
Of many divers creatures to appear 
In times far off, but slight credentials bear. 
From some far country must they all have come ; 145 
What region then was their primeval home ? 
105 
