Or once in a million years had wrecked His work
And shaped, in a flash, a myriad lives anew,
Bearing in their own bodies all the signs
Of their descent from those that He destroyed?
Who left that ancient leaf within the flower?
Who hid within the reptile those lost fins,
And under the skin of the sea-floundering whale
The bones of the lost thigh? Who dusked the foal
With shadowy stripes, and under its hoof concealed
Those ancient birdlike feet of its lost kin?