Evolution Up to Date
In the December issue we had the original Langdon Smith’s “Evolution”. Now steps forth Lewis Allen with a much more modern expression on the tadpole and fish idea. This is it:
By Lewis Allen.
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the palaeozoic time,
’Twas side by side near the ebbing tide
We tangoed through the slime.
We skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the maze of each fox-trot step,
For we had the craze in those ancient days—
To the dance stuff we were hep.
Mindless we lived, and mindless we loved,
And mindless we passed away—
Which all goes to show that long ago
Our brains were the brains of today.
The world turned on “in the lathe of time”
With many a mighty twist.
We were normal then, beyond your ken.
No watch adorned your wrist!
We were amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And garbed in the latest style.
We coiled at ease, ’neath the dripping trees,
Or played with a crocodile.
Croaking and blind, with our side-laced feet,
Writing a language dumb,
Though we had no brains, we had no pains,
And that was going some.
Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved,
And happy we went our way,
And believe me, kid, when I say we did,
Which is more than we do today.
And the aeons came, and the aeons fled,
And days came with the nights,
To our surprise, we all had eyes,
So we took in the sights.
Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung from bough to bough,
Or loafed ’mid the balms of the fronded palms—
Wish we could do it now!
And Oh! what beautiful years were those
When we learned the use of speech,
When our lives were stilled and our senses thrilled
As we chattered with some dear peach!
And that was a million years ago;
Years that have fled away,
Yet here tonight in the glaring light
We sit in a wild cafe.
And your thoughts are deep as a buckwheat cake.
Your peroxide hair is great;
Though your heart is cold and your age is old,
You love to hesitate.
Once we howled through the jungle wastes.
With a club each won his mate.
And she had to work, nor could she shirk,
Lest a blow would be her fate.
But now we go on our bended knees
To a girl we would make our wife,
And she keeps us broke until we croak—
Alas for the modern life!
So as we dance at luncheon here,
Missing each savory dish,
I’m feeling blue, for I wish that you
Were a Tadpole and I a Fish!
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