THE world is older than our earliest dates; All thoughts, all feelings, all desires, all fates, Were known and tested, long ere Adam's crime Set the keen sword of flame at Eden-gates! Billions of years on billions more have fled, Since first love's kiss a maiden cheek turned red; Since the first mother nursed her innocent babe -- The first wild mourner wept above his dead. These ancient clods our vagrant feet displace, May once have held the loftiest soul of grace; This dateless dust that dims our garden flowers, May once have smiled -- a beauteous woman's face! Older than all man's wisdom and his dreams, Older than all which is, than all which seems, Our world rolls on, where wrapped in cloud-like fire, Phantasmal, pale, her awful death-morn gleams! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D.G.C. TO J.A by EMILY JANE BRONTE EARLY RISING by JOHN GODFREY SAXE WHERE GO THE BOATS? by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE HEAVENS ARE OUR RIDDLE by HERBERT BATES THE FASHIONS, 1806 by LEWIS BEACH |