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Part 4

The Mound Builders · George Bryce — chapter 4 of 4 · ~170 words · public domain

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Pale, shimmering ghosts that flit around, While spade and mattock death-fields glean, Open with words from the unseen The mysteries now in cerements bound.

No answer yet! We gaze in vain. With lamp and lore let science come. Now, clear eyed maiden!!--You, too, dumb! Your light gone out!!--'tis night again.

And is this all? an earthen pot! A broken spear! a copper pin! Earth's grandest prizes counted in, A burial mound!--the common lot!

Yes! this were all; but o'er the mound, The stars, that fill the midnight sky, Are eyes from Heaven that watch on high Till domesday's thrilling life-note sound.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Page 9 (b): The following changes have been made from the original text:

come changed to came (it came from a distant locality);

impliments changed to implements (crushed in by one of these implements.)

Some paragraphs appear to end mid-sentence; however no text is missing from the source document. The author chose to turn the end of those sentences into paragraph headings.

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