Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4248, 12 August 1882, Page 1

Select Poetry.

THE MBTEOBITE.

[The discovery, by Dr Hahn, an eminent German geologist, of organic remains in meteoric stones, as one of the most astounding achievements in modern science. By examining a great number of meteorites, he claims to have determined about fifty species of coral, crinoids. and sponges, bearing a close relation to similar classes of fossil forms on our earth. The inference from which seemß conclusive, that these stones are really fragments of a dismembered world.] From the ruins of what world, From what splintered planet hurled, Hast thou journeyed to our own, Thou mysterious alien stone ? By what orb's conflicting course, By what mighty cosmic force Far transcending finite thought, vi . Was the awful havoc-wrought ? ;<■■ ->- Of that ruin of that wreck, Indistinguishable speck, Lost in unillumined space, Where light passing, leaves no traceWhere through darkness shines the Ban, Bearing warmth, but yielding none, Where there is no day nor night, Up nor down, nor depth nor heightAges upon ages lost, , Till thy path our orbit crossed, ( In thy wanderings hast thou known Solitude, thou lonely stone ? Smitten into sudden glare By our planet's shield of air, The cold, rayless clod became A fierce meteor, trailing flame. Men beheld thee from afar Starting like a fallen star. Heard thy roar, and watched thy flight, Rushing through the red-lit night. Such the fury of thy speed, They had barely time to-heed, With wild eyes to gaze and hark, Thou hadst fallen, and all was dark." Half in fiory trains consumed, Through the vault which they illumed, Scared, encrusted, scarred, and rent, Here at last thou liest spent. With all objects strange and rare, Brought from ocean, earth, and air, Grouped in this historic hall,Thou the strangest of them all! Art thou of that swarm of stars Which, beyond the ring of Mars, Throng the path of one destroyed— Thou a small strayed asteroid ? To this tranquil resting place, For some ocean spilled in pace, On some old dismantled world, Through what unknown cycles whirled! Was the orb of which thou art But this rude, imperfect part, Furnished and arrayed as ours, Fanned by winds and swept by showers ? Were there mountains there, and trees ? Islands set in azure seas ? Curving waves, whose foamy crest Broke in beauty on thy breast ? And did life, upon that sphere, Mount in myriad forms aa here, By the same eternal laws, Pulsing from one Primal Cause ? . Did the world-force, which began Low and Darkling, climb to man, Flower in thought, and crown the whole With the glory of a soul ? And was evil there, and wrong ? Were there races weak and strong ? Many-peopled lands and climes ? Were there passions ? were there crimes ? Tyranny, and caste, and slaves ? Was there marriage ? were there graves ? Art and song and science known ? Yield thy meanings, mystic stone ! Vain the yearning, all in vain Is the soul's ecstatic pain, Wrestling with Eternity For intelligence of thee; Where thy home and native skies Mind is powerless to surmise: Still the thought will burn and boat, Still we ponder and repeat— From what shattered system hurlod, From what planet, from what world, Hast thou wandered to our own, Thou mysterious alien stone ? —J. T. Trowbridge, in Youth's Companion.