Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1875-01-29
The skull in the Gold Drift.

by gDwAID C. sTEDNAN.
What hJ! dumb jester cease to grin and mask il.
Grim courier, thou hast stayed upon the road
Yield up the secret OF this battered casket-
This shard, where once a living soul abode
What dost thou here, how long hast lain imbecded
In crystal sands the drift of Times despair:
Thine earth TO earth with aureste dover welded,
Thy parts all changed to something rich and raie
Noiceless thou art and yet revelation
or that most ancient world beneath the New;
But who shall guess thy race thy name and station,
IONS and ieons ere those bowlders grew,
What alchemy can make thy visage lker
Its untransmuted shape. thy flesh restore,
Resolve TO blood again thy golden ichor,
Possess thee Of thy life thou hadst before,
Before And when, What ages immemorial
lave passed since daylight fell where thou dost
What motion strata, ay and do;sam horeal.
Lave shielded well thy rest, and pressed thee
Thou little visit wha: mighty foods descended.
How sprawled the armoret monsters in their
Nor heardest when the watery cycle ended,
The inastocon and mammoth U or thee tramp.
loT seemed this globe Of ours when thcu didst scan
When in is qsty youth, there sprang to birth
Al that hath life, unnurtured and tie planet,
was paradise, the true Saturnian Earth!
fAt toward The toles was stretched the happy
Earth kept it fair by warmth from her own
breast
fg.i had not come to dwarf her sons and harden,
Ho crime tthsre vas no want peturoed the-r
rest
noE lived thy kind, Was there No duty blended
with all their tliless joy-no grand desire:
ferchance As shcpherds On the meads they tended
Their Aocks, ald known the pastoral pipe and
Tyre
uut.l hundred happy generations.
"h,se birth and death had neither pain nor fea-,
II last, in riper ages brou ght tne nations
To modts Wh'ca We renew who erect thee here
lT.yv st-.aiy tbo., ,ba,. 1.,,f1. .t,t- .,, -..t.
Win what strong engines speeced 10 and fro.
Mat muse thrilled ;heir souls what poets dttics
Blade youth with love, and age with honor glow
Ana had they then their Homer, kepler, Bacon
DID some Columbus find an unknown cline
Mas there an archetypal Christ, iorsaken
Oi those be died % save, in that lar time,
When came The end What terrible con,uls.on
he2t cd from within the EastA's dlsiended shell
what pcut-up demors, by their fierce repVlsiUp,
Made oi that sunlit crust 4 sunless helIe
How, when the hour ripe, those deathiul fp7rss
In ono resistless doom o'erwhemed all;
tu-uled the seas and dried the riFer-cOuTses.
And made the orests and the cities all
All me with what 4 sudden. dreadful thunder
Tho whole round world was split from pole %
pole
Down sank the continents. the waters under
And Ere burst forth where now the oceans rul.
oi those wan iames the dismal eXha ations
sta %, anon, each living creatures breath;
Tear Lie was driven from Is utmost stations
Ana seeihed beneath the smoking pail OF Death
4Htl NIaNAl- 4tdI tull uI -nt AOn neLfled giants
The trOui ). .err3s the skies ia d hold.
Their watch and ward nave hidden time defiance.
Guarding thy grave am q t1e sands % gold.
llY k!nd was then no more What untold ages,
Ere Man. renewed from earth by slow degrees
Woke 60 the strife he now with Nature wages
or ruder lands and more tempestuOus seas.
How poor the gold. that made thy burial splend q,
hes.d one single annal % Ihy race,
tHe I'm plemen-, one fragment tIat attended
Iay l,e-which now hash lett not even trles.
From tac souls realm awhile recall thy spirit
See low the land is spread. how flows the main.
Tie tribe, that IN thy stead the globe inherit.
IAe.s grand ul.r-t, their e. ger joy and pain.
Beneath cur feet q thousand ages m1ulder.
Ursyer our skies than thine the " wiuss d.. re
chill
Iano the young world, AMI uu-. iAe h,a-c-,
colder.
But Mans uu.uIteril- rsart is tIuuticss still.
Ana yet-and We. .kc thine ms solemn story;
Grrpc whore he Ill., trans .ton lies before.
We, 600, must pass our wisdom, works. and glory
il turn shall yield, and change. and ls more.