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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL, by FRANCIS BRET HARTE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Speak, o man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil! Last Line: "home to old missouri!" Alternate Author Name(s): Harte, Bret Subject(s): Geology; Skulls | |||
"SPEAK, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil! Primal pioneer of pliocene formation, Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum Of Volcanic tufa! "Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium; Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogamia; Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions Of earth's epidermis! "Eo -- Mio -- Plio -- whatsoe'er the 'cene' was That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder, -- Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches, -- Tell us thy strange story! "Or has the Professor slightly antedated By some thousand years the advent on this planet, Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted For cold-blooded creatures? "Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest, When above thy head the stately Sigillaria Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant Carboniferous epoch? "Tell us of that scene, -- the dim and watery wood- land, Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or in- sect, Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club-mosses, Lycopodiacea -- "When beside time walked the solemn Plesio- saurus, And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus, While from time to time above thee flew and circled Cheerful Pterodactyls. "Tell us of thy food, -- those half-marine refec- tions, Crinoids on the shell, and Brachipods au natu- rel, -- Cuttle-fish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo Seems a periwinkle. "Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's crea- tion, -- Solitary fragment of remains organic! Tell the wondrous secrets of thy past existence, -- Speak! thou oldest primate!" Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla And a lateral movement of the condyloid process, With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastica- tion, Ground the teeth together; And from that imperfect dental exhibition, Stained with expressed juices of the weed Nico- tian, Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs Of expectoration: "Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted Falling down a shaft, in Calaveras County, But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces Home to old Missouri!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MORNING PAPER, SOCIETY PAGE by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE ESSAY: 13 PRESSURE POINTS INSIDE THE SKULL by ELENI SIKELIANOS LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL by GEORGE GORDON BYRON YARDBIRD'S SKULL by OWEN DODSON PERFECT; ON THE WESTERN SEABOARD OF SOUTH UIST by CHRISTOPHER MURRAY GRIEVE THE U. S. SAILOR WITH THE JAPANESE SKULL by WINFIELD TOWNLEY SCOTT THE LEAPING POLL by WILLIAM HERVEY ALLEN JR. HOW ARE YOU, SANITARY?' by FRANCIS BRET HARTE A NEWPORT ROMANCE by FRANCIS BRET HARTE A SECOND REVIEW OF THE GRAND ARMY [MAY 24, 1865] by FRANCIS BRET HARTE |
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