Poems
The Fossil Elephant
Are gone since I had birth;
In the forests of the olden time,
And the solitude’s of earth.
We were a race of mighty things;
The world was all our own.
I dwelt with the Mammoth large and strong,
And the giant Mastodon.
No ship went over the waters then,
No ship with oar or sail;
But the wastes of the sea were habited
By the Dragon and the Whale.
And the Hydra down in the ocean caves
Abode, a creature grim;
And the scaled Serpents huge and strong
Coiled up in the waters dim.
The wastes of the world were all our own;
A proud, imperial lot!
Man had not then dominion given,
Or else we knew it not.
There was no city on the plain;
No fortress on the hill;
No mighty men of strength, who came
With armies up, to kill.
There was no iron then — no brass —
No silver and no gold;
The wealth of the world was in its woods,
And its granite mountains old.
And we were the kings of all the world
We knew its breadth and length;
We dwelt in the glory of solitude,
And the majesty of strength.
But suddenly came an awful change!
Wherefore, ask not of me;
That it was, my desolate being shews, —
Let that suffice for thee.
The Mammoth huge and the Mastodon
Were buried beneath the earth;
And the Hydra and the Serpents strong,
In the caves where they had birth!
There is now no place of silence deep,
Whether on land or sea;
And the Dragons lie in the mountain-rock ,
As if for eternity!
And far in the realms of thawless ice,
Beyond each island shore,
My brethren lie in the darkness stern
To awake to life no more!
And not till the last conflicting crash
When the world consumes in fire,
Will their frozen sepulchres be loosed,
And their dreadful doom expire!
Analysis (ai): The poem reflects early 19th-century fascination with prehistoric life and geological time, predating widespread acceptance of evolution but engaging with emerging scientific discoveries. It imagines a world before human dominance, emphasizing natural grandeur and extinction. The speaker, a fossilized elephant, recounts a lost epoch of colossal creatures and untouched wilderness. This elegiac tone aligns with Romantic-era meditations on time and decay, though it diverges by centering non-human experience.
Voice and Perspective: Using a first-person fossil as narrator was uncommon for its time, granting agency to an extinct being and shifting focus from human progress to planetary change. This technique anticipates later ecological awareness, though filtered through a moralistic, quasi-biblical framework. The voice carries authority from lived experience across epochs, contrasting with typical Romantic individualism.
Religious and Scientific Tensions: The reference to “Six thousand years” adheres to literal biblical chronology, yet the imagery of buried giants aligns with contemporary fossil findings that challenged such timelines. The poem attempts reconciliation—divine creation includes extinct species, whose remains serve as testament. Unlike the author’s more overtly moralistic children’s works, this piece allows ambiguity in divine purpose.
Form and Language: Simple quatrains with regular meter reflect didactic traditions common in Victorian verse, particularly in works intended for education or edification. Archaic diction like “dwelt,” “abode,” and “wherefore” elevates the tone, suggesting antiquity and gravitas. These choices distance the speaker temporally, reinforcing the theme of deep time.
Place in Author’s Work: Less known than her moral tales or hymns, this poem stands out in her oeuvre for its speculative scope and natural imagery. It reveals an interest in science and myth not evident in her better-known didactic texts. Among her lesser-discussed works, it uniquely merges paleontological curiosity with narrative imagination.
Mary Howitt
(1799 – 1888)
Mary Howitt
(12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English writer, editor, translator and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the UK. She is most known as the author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She translated several works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband, William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
