Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-01-27
The Skull i'm the Gold Drift.
BY EDMUND c. sTEDMAN

What no ouiap tester, cease 60 grim and mask
-, Grim COURIER, thou hast stayed upon the
FA q roadt 81
Yield up the secretlof this bait tered casket.
ii q This shard. where once aIving soul abode I
What dost thou here ? how long hast lain i'm
bedded
In crystal sands, tue drift of Time d. spair:
Thine earth to earth Wish aureata power
Thy parts all changed to something rich and
r@r'f ~ IA a..
Voiceless thou art, and yet revelation
Of the most ancient world beneath the
T-F Now; rs rf =
il But who shall guess thy race, thy name and
~ II station, 81 II F## 3 Is =
f lions and @ons ere these powders grew?
What alchemy can make thy vsage liker 3 3
It's untransmuted shape, thy flesh restore,
Resolve to blood again thy golden ichor,
Possess thee of the Life thou hadst before !?
Before. And when? What ages immemoria
Have passed since daylight fell where thou
dost sleep tl5EJ
What molten strata, ay and fotsam boreal,
Have shielded we'll thy rest, and pressed thee
FL deep SIS
- Thou little visit what mighty floods de-
How sprawled the armored monsters in their
Htt camp. ~. o.. tff tsttL tfE
Nor heardest, when the watery cycle ended &
The mastodon and mammoth DER thee
tramp.
s. didst scan it ?
.tt. When, III its lusty youth, there sprang to
birth
All that hash life, unnurtured, and the planet
Was paradise, the true Saturnan Earth!
For toward the poles was stretched tho happy
garden;
Earth kept it fair by warmth from her own
tai breasts;
Toll had not come to dwarf her sons and
harden:
No crime (there WAS no want y perturbed
EsH s their rest.
How lived thy kind? Was there duty
blended
With ali their toilless ioy-Enoa grand desire !?
Perchance shepherds, on the measls they
tended
Their fiocks and knew the pastoral pipe and
Until hundred happy generations 1 3@
ii Wkose birth and death had neither pain nor
fear,
At last in riper ages. brought the nations
81. To modes which we renew who greet thee
How stately then they built their royal cities,
With what strong engines speeded to and
What music thrilled their souls; what poets
ditties -r..s-3
Made youth with love- and age with honor
glsw?
And had they then their Homer, Kepley, Ba-
-..- con -..-. -.rr ~.
Did some Columbus find an unknown cline !?
Was there an archetypal Christ, forsaken t#
.. Of those he died to save, in that far tlme2
when came the end? What terrible convul-
40 Heayed from within the Earth's distended
shell?
. What pent-up demons by their fierce repu-
Made Of that suifht crust sunless hell?
How, when the hour was ripe, those beautiful
forces -... -... D ,s.-s
In one resstless doom overwhelmed We all :;
fed no
And made the forests and the cities fall!
The whole round world split from pole
topole
..ar Down sank the continents, the waters under,
And fire burst forth where now the oceans
roll &a%
OF those wan flames the dismal eXhalations
Stifed, anon, each living creatures breath !;
Dear Life was driven from It's utmost stations,
And seethed beneath the smoking pail OF
Death =.
Then brawing leapt full hight yon helmed
giants:
The proud Sierras on the skies laid hold;
Their watch and ward have hidden time def
Guarding thy grave amid the sands of gold
Thy kind was then no more! What untold
Ere Man renewed from earth by slow de-
Woke to the strife he now with Nature wages
Ger ruder lands and more tempestuous
How poor the gold, that made thy burial
splendid
Beside one single ANIMAL of thy race,
One implement one fragment that attended
Thp lfe-which now=hath left not even a
trace!
From the souls realm awhile recall thy spirit.
See how the land is spread, how flows the
main,
The tribes that in thy stead the globe inherit,
Their grand unrest, their eager joy and
pain.
Beneath our feet thousand ages molder,
Graver our skies than thine. the winds more
chill;
Thine the young world, and ours the hoarier,
colder
But Mans unfaltering heart is dauntless
still.
And yet-and yet like thine his solemn story
Grope where he will, transition lies before:
We toe, must pass our wisdom, works, and
glory
In turn shall yield, and change and be no
more.
-Aa0sstic Monthly for February
THE FARM AND HOME
Bee-Sting Remedy.