Xviii: A Sigh For The Past Poem by Alexander Anderson

I lay amid the wreck of a rude time,
When men were rough as the huge beams they laid
For dwellings, and within the distant shade
I saw the city sleep, and heard the chime
Of bells; and linking, with a quiet thought,
The mighty present to the less mighty past,
I stood between the two, and, bowing, cast
My worship at the feet of all that sought
To place the seven-leagued boots upon advance.
Yet could I not without regret betray
A secret yearning for the earlier day,
When this great earth had not such wide expanse,
And men were rough, but with that roughness true
To all that pale refinement never knew.