Where the old world encrypted sleeps,--
Myriads of forms, in myriad cells,
Of dead and inorganic things,
That neither live, nor move, nor grow,
Nor any change of atoms know;
That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings,
That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings,
That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems,
To hold up flowers like diadems,
Growing out of the ground below:
But which hold instead
The cycles dead,
And out of their stony and gloomy folds
Shape out new moulds
For a new race begun;
Shutting within dark pages, furled
As in a vast herbarium,
The flowers and balms,
The pines and palms,
The ferns and cones,
All turned to stones
Of all the unknown elder world,
As in a wonderful museum,
Ranged in its myriad mummy shelves.
Insects and worms,--
All lower forms
Of fin and scale,
Of gnat and whale,
Fish, bird, and the monstrous mastodon,
The fabulous megatherium,