EVOLUTION.
BY LANGDON SMITH.
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.
Mindless we lived and mindless we loved,
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death,
And crept into light again.
We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man's hand;
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees,
Or trailed through the mud and sand,
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.
Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came, and the eons fled,
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day,
And the night of death was past.
Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms,
In the hush of the moonless nights.
And oh! what beautiful years were these,
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled, 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 breath, and death by death,
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke, and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.
I was thewed like an Auroch bull,
And tusked like the great Cave Bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet,
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o'er the plain,
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed,
We mumbled the bones of the slain.
I flaked a flint to a cutting edge,
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland dank,
And fitted it, head and haft.
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the Mammoth came to drink;—
Through brawn and bone I drave the stone,
And slew him upon the brink.
Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof,
We fought, and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl, with many a growl,
We talked the marvel o'er.
I carved that fight on a reindeer bone,
With rude and hairy hand,
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood, and the right of might,
Ere human laws were drawn.
And the Age of Sin did not begin
Till our brutal tusks were gone.
And that was a million years ago,
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here to-night in the mellow light,
We sit at Delmonico's;
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is as dark as jet.
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet——
Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay,
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags,
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones,
And deep in the Coraline crags;
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come to-day, what man may say
We shall not live again?
Then as we linger at luncheon here,
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish.
A HOROSCOPE OF THE MONTHS.
BY MARION Y. BUNNER.
SECOND INSTALMENT.
What the Old Astrological Traditions Say of the Characteristics and the Destiny of
Those Born Under the Sign "Aries," Representing the Period Between
March 21 and April 19.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
ARIES: THE RAM.
MARCH 21 to APRIL 19.
CUSP: MARCH 21 to MARCH 27.
The constellation "Aries"—the first sign of the zodiac, and the head sign of the Fire Triplicity—exerts its influence from March 21 to April 19, the period coinciding with the first month of the Roman year. It is a cardinal, equinoctial, movable, masculine sign, the positive pole of the Fire Triplicity, governing the face and head. The most typical attributes of its subjects are unfailing courage, intuition, and reason.
A person born during the period of the cusp, when the sun is on the edge of the sign, does not receive the full benefits of the individuality of either sign, but partakes of the characteristics of both.
Persons born under this sign are positive, obedient, yet with a faculty for commanding, paradoxical as this may appear. They are also inventive, original, determined, and executive. Once the mind of an Aries subject is made up, nothing can swerve him from the course he has determined to pursue. Before undertaking any new enterprise, his habit is to study the entire situation carefully, thereby discovering and profiting by many seemingly minor, yet in the end important, points which would probably have escaped the ordinary individual.
Aries people are good conversationalists, having keen intellects. Many fine writers, poets, lecturers, and teachers come out of this sign.
They are aggressive and excitable, oftentimes going to extremes in their excitement, and they are apt to show too much antagonism. They enter a fight to win, and nothing can induce them to back out of it. The Aries woman has the same fighting spirit, and stands by her friends to the end, no matter what the circumstances may be.
The subjects of Aries are easily angered, but the fire is quickly quenched, leaving behind no sting or grudge. They are generous, sympathetic, and kindly, and so much do they think of their friends that they will never acknowledge a comrade's faults. On the other hand, they never fail to see the failings of their enemies and to speak of them in no uncertain terms.
The traits of Aries people are perhaps more varied and peculiar than those of any other of the twelve signs. They are not naturally patient, yet they are extremely so with those they love.
The Aries man is usually well-built, strong, and tall.
According to some authorities, the short, broad-shouldered subjects are much more fortunate in making money than are the tall ones. They have intellectual eyes, a ruddy complexion. Their foreheads are broad at the eyebrows. The eyes are generally deep set. They are more than willing to work for what they want to secure.
The success of an Aries subject depends upon the way in which he uses his splendid energy, action, systematic endeavor, and finally upon his determination to stick at the work in hand and push it to completion.