Extreme Antiquity of the Earth asserted-Consequences of Central Heat-A Belt of Clouds formed round the GlobeChanged to a Ring of Ice-The Ring broken up-Consequent Effect upon the Earth's Surface-Contest between Heat and Cold continued-Consequent Effects upon the Earth's Surface-Creation of Organic Life-Various Changes down to the Creation of Man.
́HEN earth was newly moulded into form,
And the dread void was filled, and darkness lay No longer on the surface of the deep, There was a wondrous time ere Time began To measure out the dole of human life
By minims of succession: Years were none That with the seasons' circling round expired, Born to scant heritage of petty change, And brief dominion o'er crude circumstance: But as an ocean stream the cycles flowed, Unbroken, unconfined; and the large Days Were told by lapse of myriad centuries. From the Beginning all may not be traced
By less than Angel; part is yet unsealed
By reason and experience, fountains twain
That rise for man, and blend their streams in one; Part by up-thundering earthquakes brought to light; And part revealed beneath the earth and sea, In murky shades of caverns many-tongued, To those who to a nether world go down, And occupy their business in the mine, Or in the sounding quarry shape the stone.
Earth, big with elements and principles, At first, as now, upon her axle rolled With pace innocuous, changeless, uniform. Yet, ere divided by the firmament
The waters from the waters stood distinct,
The universal canopy of air,
By operation fierce of central heat,
Grew seething vapour; seas and lakes were none;
All elemental liquid was dispersed
To upper regions, interfused with air
Expanded in insufferable range
To realms that lie betwixt the earth and moon,
Where of contending forces none prevails, Fast by the confines of the realms of cold. Hence condensation moist, and hence the globe Became encinctured by a belt of clouds,
Compact at length to a belt of gleaming ice, A ring opaque, self-balanced, wonderful, Fixed in the concave by petrific cold; A frigid zone material, unlike that By sage geometricians since described In parcelling out the imaginary sphere. But heat in due procession rising slow, With purpose of reprisal to be wreaked Upon the antagonist principle, by stealth Attained the limits of the frost-bound air; Thawing insidiously the gleaming ring's Continuous encincture: all at once By gravitating pulse resistless drawn, Yet slowly first, the hideous ruin fell. Then swift and swifter whirling, clashed, and rung, And shivered in the middle firmament,
With fulminations of dire impact, shot From masses self-attracted, self-repelled,
Even 'midst the acceleration of their fall,
Whose speed outstripped their own outrageous clang. Deep shadowing thus they came: not as we see Sharp-pointed sleet, or comminuted hail, Cast forth like morsels on the wintry plain; But glaciers-ice-bergs-aërolites of ice- Like continents and mountains, capes and isles, Down-thundering erst in arch-angelic war,
Encountered the scared earth, that, furnace-like, With fiery emanation hissed and glowed;
And all the surface in commotion rose Torn by the fresh-engendered hurricane Of vaporous explosion, with a noise Of the icy concrete, into atoms dashed, Flashing to steam, then re-absorbed in air: Yet earth, as now, upon her axle rolled, With pace innocuous, changeless, uniform.
Still battling for the mastery, searching cold Of his old sceptre strove to dispossess
The fiery element, and subvert his reign;
Nor failed at length; for weakened and o'erwrought By undulations lost in boundless space,
Heat fled the superficial plain of earth,
To the volcano's narrow bounds confined;
The petty fortress left him to defend.
Then too, the sphere of air was circumscribed, And rendered up its watery particles
Conglobed in drops on high; thence downward drawn
To cool the surface with impetuous rain,
Condensed and roaring into cataracts
For ages from the watery shell of air:
Hollowing out ocean beds, and craggy shores,
By which no heart of buoyant mariner
E'er shaped a course, or hoisted gladdening sail; And scooping valleys desolate and lone; And wearing rocks to columns and to peaks, Whilst all the bounding echoes were absorbed And deadened in the granite-shattering whirl And strife of waterspouts, that ceaseless raved On oldest mountain-ranges, older far Than Himalayas, Alps, or Apennines, For these as yet were not;-primeval hills, Disconsolate, disastrous, unredeemed
By softening landscape, sight or sound of joy: Yet earth, as now, upon her axle rolled, With pace innocuous, changeless, uniform.
Pass we to happier times, when breath of life Organic, breath of herb, tree, fruit, and flower, After their kind that quicken, and inspire Odours and savours to the laughing air, Gladdened the teeming garden of the world: And creeping things first made, then nobler kinds, Each after each, endowed with nerve and brain, Volition's seat, with frames for strength and speed, In sport exerted, or for needful prey, Started to life in forest, mere, or fen, When this fair world was green, and all their own. Peaceful the starry heavens rose and set;
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