Archaeopteryx Expressions

The Nautilus and the ammonite,

Were launch’d in friendly strife;

Each sent to float, in its tiny boat,

On the wide wild sea of life!

For each could swim on the ocean’s brim,

And when wearied its sail could furl;

And sink to sleep in the great sea deep,

In its palace all of pearl!

And theirs was a bliss, more fair than this,

That we feel in our colder time;

For they were rife, in a tropic life,

In a brighter, and better clime!

They swam ‘mid isles whose summer smiles

No wintry winds annoy;

Whose groves are palm- whose air is balm-

Where life is only joy!

They sailed all day through creek and bay,

And traversed the ocean deep;

And at night they sank on a coral bank,

In its fairy bowers to sleep!

A selection from The Poetry of Geology edited by Robert M. Hazen, 1982