And then the floods descended, chaos reigned,
The world a waste of waters, and the heavens
A sunless void, until again he wakes,
And sun and moon and stars resume their rounds,
Oceans receding show the mountain-tops,
And then the hills and spreading plains--
Strange fables all, that crafty men have feigned.
Why waste your time pursuing such vain dreams--
As some benighted travelers chase false lights
To lose themselves in bogs and fens at last?
But read instead in Nature's open book
How light from darkness grew by slow degrees;
How crawling worms grew into light-winged birds,
Acquiring sweetest notes and gayest plumes;
How lowly ferns grew into lofty palms;
How men have made themselves from chattering apes;[2]
How, even from protoplasm to highest bard,
Selecting and rejecting, mind has grown,
Until at length all secrets are unlocked,
And man himself now stands pre-eminent,
Maker and master of his own great self,
To sneer at all his lisping childlike past
And laugh at all his fathers had revered."

The prince with gentle earnestness replied:
"Full well I know how blindly we grope on
In doubt and fear and ignorance profound,
The wisdom of the past a book now sealed.
But why despise what ages have revered?
As some rude plowman casts on rubbish-heaps