FLORIDA CAVERNS
Reading edition
Here we behold most wondrous sights No mortal understands, Of stalactites and stalagmites, A house not made with hands.
Here Nature set to work her hands In ages long since gone, That man might quit his work on lands To see and ponder on.
What means these fluted columns tall,— These pendants from the dome? These sculptured figures large and small, Excelling Greece and Rome?
This drapery striped with Nature’s hues, In regular spaces wrought? These scenes man’s pride at once subdues— They are beyond his thought.
The brute would look and turn away To seek his fill of food; ’Tis ours to seek while here we stay, The Great Creative Good.
The Architect within whose mind The wonders of the sea, The land, the sky, and all their kind, Has wrought for you and me.
That we may look upon His deeds And make our own expand, For we alone best serve all needs As tools within His hand.
—Charles Cottingham Marianna, Florida
The stalagmite on the right is almost joined with a stalactite. If it does, it will make a column. The grape-like clusters in the upper foreground result when the flow of water is so slow that all of it evaporates from the ceilings and deposits its mineral load there.