the delvers at Mineral Point.
He, or his subsequents, issue of him,
I know not; and, soothe to say,
Shall never know.

Neither wilt thou ever know
Anything of me, old Mound Builder!
Of the race of Americans, nothing,
Who now, and ever henceforth,
Own, and shall own, this continent!
Heirs of the vast wealth of time
Since thou from the same land departed;
New thinkers, new builders, creators
Of life, and the scaffolds of life,
For far-off grand generations!
This skull which I handle!--
How long has the soul left it tenantless?
And what did the soul do in its house,
When this roof covered it?
Many things, many wonderful things!
It wrote its primeval history
Is earthworks and fortifications,
In animal forms and pictures,
In symbols of unknown meaning.

I know from the uncouth hieroglyphs,
And the more finished records,
That this soul had a religion,
Temples, and priests, and altars:
I think the life-giver, the sun,
Was the god unto whom he sacrificed.
I think that the moon and stars
Were the lesser gods of his worship;
And that the old serpent of Eden
Came in for a share of devotion.

I find many forms of this reptile,
Scattered along the prairies,
Coiled on the banks of the rivers,
In Iowa, and far Minnesota,
And here and there, in Wisconsin.
Now he is circular,
Gnawing his tail, like the Greek symbol,
Suggesting infinite meanings
Unto the mind of a modern
Crammed with the olden mythologies.
Now, uncoiled in the sunlight,
He stretches himself out at full length
In all his undulate longitude.
His body is a constellation of mounds,
Artfully imitative,
From the fatal tail to the more fatal head.
Overgrown they are with grass,
Short, green grass, thick and velvety,
Like well cared-for lawns,
With strange, wild flowers glittering,
Made up of alien mould
Brought hither from distant regions.

Curiously I have considered them,
Many a time in the summer,
Lying beside them under the flaming sky,
Smoking an old tobacco pipe,
Made by one of these moundsmen.
Who in his time had smoked it,
Perchance over the council fire,
Or in the dark woods where he had gone a-hunting;
In war time--in peaceful evenings,
With