Is it force to warn daughters that to wed Poverty means just a mother’s death bed? And as for a sale of hearts, dare compare A lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare! Still, in essence a likeness we may find In our modes to those of the new-world kind. Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot, Patience no less, they ran down any brute; Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones, And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones. Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low, Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe! Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chase Far from their customary haunts. Small case They made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heap Threw themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep. Pity not that beneath no roof they lay, As darkness followed on the close of day. They wailed not, doubting its return, for light, Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night. The two had from their childhood come and gone; Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone? To them who never knew of locks and bars, A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars. Rather it was when they had sought repose In caves they met most danger from their foes. It might occur to some wandering beast, Making the night hideous, to infest A recess it passed: and, however glad The tenant to buy life with all he had, His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw. Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw; Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jagged From the bleeding flesh, about the woods dragged Noisome centres of horror and pest—palms Trembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms; Calling with agonizing cries on death To sink their remains to the world beneath. Alas! Though measure age with age; nor let Us in compassion for a few forget How hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war, Return, less thousands weltering in gore; A navy that rode yesterday the waves, To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves. Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride, And lightly laid its empty threats aside; Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not; Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot; Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint; Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint; For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed; With polished art we serve them to a guest! A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men therein Who stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin. Chief of all discoveries theirs to learn How the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn. First, lightning brought it, darting from above; Though men might watch its birth in any grove, For when gales blow, the old trees sway about, And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out. The sun taught many uses; how the heat— Repeated rays—will gradually beat Hardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepare The soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare.