| |
| O UNHATCHED Bird, so high preferred, | |
| As porter of the Pole, | |
| Of beakless things, who have no wings, | |
| Exact no heavy toll. | |
| If this my song its theme should wrong, | 5 |
| The theme itself is sweet; | |
| Let others rhyme the unborn time, | |
| I sing the Obsolete. | |
| |
| And first, I praise the nobler traits | |
| Of birds preceding Noah, | 10 |
| The giant clan, whose meat was Man, | |
| Dinornis, Apteryx, Moa. | |
| These, by hints we get from prints | |
| Of feathers and of feet, | |
| Excelled in wits the later tits, | 15 |
| And so are obsolete. | |
| |
| I sing each race whom we displace | |
| In their primeval woods, | |
| While Gospel Aid inspires Free-Trade | |
| To traffic with their goods. | 20 |
| With Norman Dukes the still Sioux | |
| In breeding might compete; | |
| But where men talk the tomahawk | |
| Will soon grow obsolete. | |
| |
| I celebrate each perished State; | 25 |
| Great cities ploughed to loam; | |
| Chaldæan kings; the Bulls with wings; | |
| Dead Greece, and dying Rome. | |
| The Druids’ shrine may shelter swine, | |
| Or stack the farmer’s peat; | 30 |
| ’T is thus mean moths treat finest cloths, | |
| Mean men the obsolete. | |
| |
| Shall nought be said of theories dead? | |
| The Ptolemaic system? | |
| Figure and phrase, that bent all ways | 35 |
| Duns Scotus liked to twist ’em? | |
| Averrhoes’ thought? and what was taught, | |
| In Salamanca’s seat? | |
| Sihons and Ogs? and showers of frogs? | |
| Sea-serpents obsolete? | 40 |
| |
| Pillion and pack have left their track; | |
| Dead is “the Tally-ho;” | |
| Steam rails cut down each festive crown | |
| Of the old world and slow; | |
| Jack-in-the-Green no more is seen, | 45 |
| Nor Maypole in the street; | |
| No mummers play on Christmas-day; | |
| St. George is obsolete. | |
| |
| O fancy, why hast thou let die | |
| So many a frolic fashion? | 50 |
| Doublet and hose, and powdered beaux? | |
| Where are thy songs whose passion | |
| Turned thought to fire in knight and squire, | |
| While hearts of ladies beat? | |
| Where thy sweet style, ours, ours erewhile? | 55 |
| All this is obsolete. | |
| |
| In Auvergne low potatoes grow | |
| Upon volcanoes old; | |
| The moon, they say, had her young day, | |
| Though now her heart is cold; | 60 |
| Even so our earth, sorrow and mirth, | |
| Seasons of snow and heat, | |
| Checked by her tides in silence glides | |
| To become obsolete. | |
| |
| The astrolabe of every babe | 65 |
| Reads, in its fatal sky, | |
| “Man’s largest room is the low tomb— | |
| Ye all are born to die.” | |
| Therefore this theme, O Bird, I deem | |
| The noblest we may treat; | 70 |
| The final cause of Nature’s laws | |
| Is to grow obsolete. | |
| |
