Evolution

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 May 1915, Page 4

Evolution

When you were a tadpole and 1 was a lisk, In the Paleozoic time, And side by side on the ebbing tide We sprawled through the ooze anil slime Or skittered with many a caudal flip liirough the depths of the Cambrian fen, My heart was rife with the joys of life, For 1 loved youi even then. Mindless we lived and mindless we loved, And mindless at last we died, And deep in the rift ot the C'aradoc drift We slumbered side by side. 'i'lie world turned on in the latlie ol time, The hot lands heaved amain, TJi we caught our breath from the womb of death, And crept -into life again. We were Amphibians, saied. and tailed, And drab as the dead man's hand; We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees, (Jr trailed through the mud and sand, Croaking and blind, with our threeclawed feet Writing a language dumb, With never a spark in the elnpty dark To hint at a life to come. Yet liappy we lived, and happy we loved, And luippy we died ..once more ; Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold Ot a Neocomian shore. The eons came, and ..the eons fled, Ami the sleep that wrapped us fast Was liven away in. the newer, day, And the night of death was past. Then light and swift through .the. jungle trees We swung in- our airy flights., O.- breathed the balms ot the fronded palms, iu the lutsh of jnooiiless nights. And, Oh! what beautiful years were these, When our hearts clung each to each; When iii'e was tilled, and our senses thrilled In the first faint dawn of speech. Thus life by life, ■and love by love, We passed through the cycles strange. And breath by Ureatli. and aeath by death, We followed the : chain ot change". Till there came ;u unie in ttie law ot lite ° When over the .11 nixing sod The shadows brok«>, and uie Boul awoke In a strange, diim dream of God. I was thewed 1,.;e an Aurocil bull And.tusked' like the great Cave iJe-.ir-. And you, my sweet, from head to leel. Were gown«;d in your glorious hair. Jjecp in the gloom o; a urolo* cave. IVh- i, right lull o'er uie plain, And tiie moon Lung) red o er the river iieii. We mumbled the holies of the slain. i diked a ii-nt to a Quitting edge. Ami shaped it wii": bruii.sh cratt : S bioke a slittnk 1 Vojn ine woodland (.lank Anil fitted it, head and baft. Then I hid me oiose to t:.e ne y ta.;\ ■■I here tin.' alanine,.•la came to drink - t luiigii iji'awn and bone 1 drove- the stone And slow him upon the urink. Loud 1 howled through the moonlit -v a- u', Luu . answered our kith and kin. I roia -. lot to cast to tiie (rinison feast

i lie clan came 'trooping in. U'er joint and gristle and padded hoof. We fought ami clawed and tore. AII J cheek by jowl i\ ith many a growl, We talked the marvel o'er. 1 carved the light on a reindeer bone, Willi the rude and-hairy hand; 1 pic-tuned his lah on a cavern wall i'iiat men niigltt understand. I'or ne lived by blood, and the right ol might, i'hi. hitman laws were drawn, And the age of sin did not begin. Jill our brutal tusks -were gone. And that was a million years ago, In a time that no man knows \et here to-night'in the mellow light, We sit at Delmonieo's. lour eyes are as deep as the Devon springs ' Your hair is as dark as jot; \our years are few, your life is now, 1 our soul untried, and yet— Our trial is on the Kimmeridge clay, And the scrap of the i'urbeck flags; We have left our bones in the bagshot stories, And deep ill the Cora-line crags. •Our love is old, our lives are old, And death shall come amain; Should it come to-day, what man may say, We slntll not live again P Great cities have sprung above the graves W here the crooked-boned men made war, And the ox-wain creaks o'er the buried caves, .Where the mummied mammoth are. Then its we linger at luncheon here, O'er in any" a dainty disli. Let us drink anew to tile time when you Were a tadpole and I was a fish. —By Langdon Smith. In American "Business"