“THE Ancestor remote of Man,” Says Darwin, “is th’ Ascidian,” A scanty sort of water-beast That, ninety million years at least Before Gorillas came to be, Went swimming up and down the sea.
Their ancestors the pious praise, And like to imitate their ways; How, then, does our first parent live, What lesson has his life to give?
Th’ Ascidian tadpole, young and gay, Doth Life with one bright eye survey, His consciousness has easy play. He’s sensitive to grief and pain, Has tail, and spine, and bears a brain, And everything that fits the state Of creatures we call vertebrate. But age comes on; with sudden shock He sticks his head against a rock! His tail drops off, his eye drops in, His brain’s absorbed into his skin; He does not move, nor feel, nor know The tidal water’s ebb and flow, But still abides, unstirred, alone, A sucker sticking to a stone.
And we, his children, truly we In youth are, like the Tadpole, free. And where we would we blithely go, Have brains and hearts, and feel and know. Then Age comes on! To Habit we Affix ourselves and are not free; Th’ Ascidian’s rooted to a rock, And we are bond-slaves of the clock; Our rocks are Medicine—Letters—Law, From these our heads we cannot draw: Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in, And daily thicker grows our skin.
Ah, scarce we live, we scarcely know The wide world’s moving ebb and flow, The clanging currents ring and shock, But we are rooted to the rock. And thus at ending of his span, Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man Revert to the Ascidian.
“What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blonde Aryan drove him into the corners of Europe?”—_Brander Matthews_.
I AM an ancient Jest! Palæolithic man In his arboreal nest The sparks of fun would fan; My outline did he plan, And laughed like one possessed, ’Twas thus my course began, I am a Merry Jest!
I am an early Jest! Man delved, and built, and span; Then wandered South and West The peoples Aryan, _I_ journeyed in their van; The Semites, too, confessed,— From Beersheba to Dan,— I am a Merry Jest!
I am an ancient Jest, Through all the human clan, Red, black, white, free, oppressed, Hilarious I ran! I’m found in Lucian, In Poggio, and the rest, I’m dear to Moll and Nan! I am a Merry Jest!