NEBULA TO MAN 
Great times await this tusked and trunky race, 
In many lands will they exact a place ; 
And branched in species will they slow appear 225 
In strength through east and western hemisphere. 
One-horned rhinoceroses here foretell 
The species that to-day in Asia dwell. 
Others there are, whose front teeth all are gone, 
But who, instead, possess a second horn : 230 
And these, thus armed, may be the parent source 
Of Afric's huge square mouthed rhinoceros. 
Forms Pig and Hippopotamus between, 
(Congeneric with the species that had been, 
Far back as Eocene times, in marsh and mere 235 
Upon Europa's lands,) are living here. 
But on their last legs now their ways they wend, 
As pensioners of Nature, near their end ; 
As ones whose part is played ; whose strength out-spent 
Has nothing left for more development. 240 
For here around them does the country hold 
Both branches of the life their stock foretold. 
Time's river, as it were, has rent in twain 
An ancient rock, that ne'er can join again. 
But " river-horses," though in force indeed, 245 
Are few compared with divers pigs that feed 
About the land. These, some in size as hares, 
Others, mule-big, crowd thick in jungled lairs. 
Of wart-hog breeds, and India's tusky boars, 
158 
