I saw the mammoth and the bear,
Like moving mountains, run
In terror from the flint-head spear,
Proving that man had won
Lordship of earth; and I made prayer,
Aldebaran, before thee there!
IV
Arcturus lifted high his horn
And blew a mighty blast.
The curtain of the night was torn
To show the protoplast
Transfigured on the finer face
Of that far prehistoric race—
We, clumsy, call Lemurian!
A city lifted high
Its towered domes of daring man
Beneath a tropic sky,
With gates of gold that gleamed and shone
Brighter than portaled Babylon.
Men were as gods upon the earth,
The women were most fair;
Music was speech; a holy birth
Of art was cradled there—
For dreams took shape in pure jacinth,
Seraphic brows upon the plinth.
Reed instruments for dance and song;
Brave horns beneath the blue;
The sistrum and the thunder-gong;
The pipe and tabour, too;
And all the craft of minstrelsy:
Harp, sackbut, cymbal, psaltery,
Were fashioned. Then was genius stirred
To pre-Homeric lines,
And drama grew. On earth was heard
Praise of the fruitful vines,
Oil of the olive, barley-gold,
Leaping of lambs within the fold.
Told was the story of the stars,
And thine, Aldebaran,
When Jupiter was not, nor Mars;
When every shepherd-clan
Pointed and named the olden spheres
While Rome was in the womb of years.
V
Altair in Aquila stood forth
With flaming evil brow,
Looked from his tower to the north
And made an awful vow:
"I will destroy yon golden gates—
Hither to me, O shrouded Fates!