THE ZAGABOG

HERE’S a funny sort of story of an Isle beyond the sun,

Of a gleaming golden island seldom seen by anyone;

So prick your ears and listen to my most eccentric lays

Of the Island and the Zagabog from old pre-Cambrian days—

The mild and humble Zagabog,

The plain, good-hearted Zagabog

With prehistoric ways.

Upon his wondrous head he wore a rather ugly crown;

His eyes were green and somewhat sad, his tail hung meekly down;

But on a throne of early mud he comfortably sat

And ruled his Golden Island in a way I marvel at.

He was a peaceful Zagabog,

A practical old Zagabog,

And quite unique at that.

III

For Nature only made but one, though we shall never know

Why just a single Zagabog exhausted Nature so;

His subjects rose from trilobites, the newest of the new,

To other bygone beasts that leapt and swam and crawled and flew;

But all obeyed the Zagabog,

The good primeval Zagabog.

Which they were right to do.

From periods ante-Primary he dated, as we know,

And with the greatest interest observed that wondrous show

Of shells and fish, of monstrous newts, of dragons on the wing;

Then chronicled the changes that the rolling ages bring,—

That scientific Zagabog,

That most observant Zagabog;

And he loved everything.

Some twenty million years passed by and all the Isle went well;

Great palms grew on the mountain-tops; huge ferns adorned the dell;

And everywhere vast reptiles took their Mesozoic ease,

And ate each other frequently, with snap and snarl and sneeze;

But their beloved Zagabog,

Their wise and wakeful Zagabog,

They always tried to please.

For in those Secondary times, when monsters had their day,

Triassic and Jurassic giants about his feet would play;

And through the air there sometimes came the Archæopteryx—

A funny sort of feathered thing where bird and dragon mix.

“Your fossil,” said the Zagabog,

The humour-loving Zagabog,

“Will put them in a fix.”

VII

He made no laws, he made no fuss; he just sat on his throne

With a genial simplicity peculiarly his own.

The Plesiosaur, the Teleosaur, the Early Crocodile,

The weird Cretaceous ocean-folk, who never, never smile—

All worshipped the old Zagabog,

The quaint, benignant Zagabog

Of that enchanted Isle.

“THEY’RE LITTLE GIRLS AND BOYS!”

VIII

More ages passed, more monsters passed, and others took their place;

The Zagabog he still endured from endless race to race;

Till Toxodons and Mammoths came, with Sloths of stature grand,

Whose small relations still exist in many a distant land.

Of course an old-time Zagabog,

A right down Early Zagabog,

Such moderns could not stand.

But still, with all the wisdom of a hundred million years,

He tried to be more sanguine and resist his growing fears,

Till Palæolithic ages brought Dame Nature’s latest joys

And all that Golden Island rang and rippled with the noise.

“Good gracious!” said the Zagabog;

“God bless us!” cried the Zagabog,

“They’re little girls and boys!”

About his throne with laughter shrill the lads and lasses came,

And put their little hands in his and bade him make a game;

So still he rules and still he helps the children with their fun.

Of course he’ll never die himself, there being only one—

One calm, persistent Zagabog,

One good pre-Cambrian Zagabog

Beyond the setting sun.