FINAL RETREAT OF THE ICE 
Oft too is seen on plain and mountain slope 
The bison, ox, and saiga antelope. 
Here too are gaunt hyaenas come to scour, 
And lions to seek what life they may devour. 
Thus though the lands at times may gleam with ice, 25 
Well may they prove a hunter's paradise. 
No wonder to a scene, thus filled with prey, 
Will man, a hunter born, soon find his way. 
And real profession to his struggling race, 
Not sport or pastime, is the eager chase. 30 
And now are coming men upon the scene, 
Whose haunts, perchance, in Afric once had been. 
(For still with Afric is Hispania one, 
And e'en Italia's lands with Afric join ; 
And held in prison, piecemeal, is the Sea 35 
That oft afar had strayed at liberty.) 
And who are these new hunters now arriving 
On Francia's southern lands, to seek their living ? 
Are they but such as those that had explored 
Europa's lands, when for a time had thawed 40 
The long continuous ice ; and who from flints 
Had forged, though rudely, tools and implements ? 
Not such they seem, but men of fuller mind, 
Of more resource, more gifted, and refined. 
Still rude indeed their implements appear, 45 
Fashioned from bones, and stones and horns of deer ; 
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