The peasant boy watches the midnight sky;
He sees the meteor dropping from on high;
He hastens whither the bright guest hath flown,
And finds—a mass of black, unseemly stone.
Disdainful, disappointed, turns he home.
If a philosopher that way had come,
He would have seized the waif with great delight,
And honored it as an aerolite.
But truly it would need a Cuvier's mind
High meaning in my meteors to find.
Well, in my museum there is room to spare—
I'll let them stay till Cuvier goes there!