Stratum upon Stratum

The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history,

 stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book,

 to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly,

 but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, 

which precede flowers and fruit - not a fossil earth,

 but a living earth;

 compared with whose great central life 

all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.
~Henry David Thoreau~