Chapter IV

Arcturus lifted high his horn
And blew a mighty blast.
The curtain of the night was torn
To show the protoplast
Transfigured on the finer face
Of that far prehistoric race--

We, clumsy, call Lemurian!
A city lifted high
Its towered domes of daring man
Beneath a tropic sky,
With gates of gold that gleamed and shone
Brighter than portaled Babylon.

Men were as gods upon the earth,
The women were most fair;
Music was speech; a holy birth
Of art was cradled there--
For dreams took shape in pure jacinth,
Seraphic brows upon the plinth.

Reed instruments for dance and song;
Brave horns beneath the blue;
The sistrum and the thunder-gong;
The pipe and tabour, too;
And all the craft of minstrelsy:
Harp, sackbut, cymbal, psaltery,

Were fashioned. Then was genius stirred
To pre-Homeric lines,
And drama grew. On earth was heard
Praise of the fruitful vines,
Oil of the olive, barley-gold,
Leaping of lambs within the fold.

Told was the story of the stars,
And thine, Aldebaran,
When Jupiter was not, nor Mars;
When every shepherd-clan
Pointed and named the olden spheres
While Rome was in the womb of years.