The Dinosaurs’ Eggs

One morn in old Mongolia,
In Asia’s arid lands,
Men found the eggs of dinosaurs
Upon the Gobi sands.

The one-time myths in miniature,
The seeds that turned to stone;
The mirage of forgotten things
Upon the sands were strown.

Fate left them to strange lassitudes,
The lonely and the still,
That could have tusked creation’s flanks
But for some sudden chill.

The roses pined in weary wastes
Yet won to garden wall;
The honey-loving humming-birds
Outlived a waterfall;

The does a-down the centuries
Soft nosed each little fawn;
The robin’s breast was o’er her brood,
All gentle things were born.

With sweet significance the bowers
Gave beckonings and smiles,
And then came Eden’s wistful mates
To walk in Eden’s aisles.

But in the Gobi solitudes,
The tombs time left unlatched—
There lay in wind-blown shrouds of sand
The eggs that never hatched.