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96 Thou shall see, in his Jurassic tomb,

The Plesiosauras embalmed;

In his Oolitic prime and his bloom—

Iguanodon safe and unharmed!

You wished—I remember it well,

And I loved you the more for that wish—

For a perfect cystedian shell

And a whole holocephalic fish.

And O, if Earth's strata contains

In its lowest Silurian drift,

Or Palæozoic remains

The same—'t is your lover's free gift.

Then come, love, and never say nay,

But calm all your maidenly fears,

We'll note, love, in one summer's day

The record of millions of years;

And though the Darwinian plan

Your sensitive feelings may shock,

We'll find the beginning of man—

Our fossil ancestors in rock!