The Kangaroo kept very close to Dot, and warned her to be very attentive to the song, and not to interrupt it on any account. Almost before the Kangaroo had ceased to whisper in her ear, Dot heard this strange song, sung to the most peculiar tune she had ever heard, and in the funniest of little squeaky voices.
The fairest Iguanodon reposed upon the shore
Extended lay her beauteous form, a hundred feet and more.
The sun, with rays flammivomous, beat on the blue-black sand;
And sportive little Saurians disported on the strand
But oft the Iguanodon reproved them in their glee,
And said, "Alas! this Saurian Age is not what it should be!"
Then, forth from that archaic sea, the Ichthyosaurus
Uprose upon his finny wings, with neocomian fuss,
"Oh, Iguanodon!" he cried, as he approached the shore,
"Why art thou thus dysthynic, love? Come, rise with me, and soar,
Or leave these estuarian seas, and wander in the grove;
Behold! a bird-like reptile fish is dying for thy love!"
Then, through the dark coniferous grove they wandered side by side,
The tender Iguanodon and Ichthyosaurian bride
And through the enubilious air, the carboniferous breeze,
Awoke, with their amphibious sighs, the silence in the trees.
"To think," they cried, botaurus-toned, "when ages intervene,
Our osseous fossil forms will be in some museum seen!"
Bemoaning thus, by dumous path, they crushed the cycad's growth,
And many a crash, and thunder, marked the progress of them both.
And when they reached the estuary, the excandescent sun
Was setting o'er the hefted sea; their saurian day was done.
Then raised they paraseline eyes unto the flaming moon,
And wept—the Neocomian Age was passing all too soon!
Oh, Iguanodon! oh, earth! oh, Ichthyosaurus
Oh, Melanocephalous saurians! Oh! oh! oh!
(Here the Platypus was sobbing)
Oh, Troglyodites obscure—oh! oh!
At this point of the song, the poor Platypus, whose voice had trembled with increasing emotion and sobbing in each verse, broke down, overcome by the extreme sensitiveness of its fifth pair of nerves and the sadness of its song, and wept in terrible grief.
The gentle Kangaroo was also deeply moved, seeing the Platypus in such sorrow, and Dot mastered her aversion to touching cold, damp fur, and stroked the little creature's head.
The Platypus seemed much soothed by their sympathy, but hurriedly bade them farewell. It said it must try and restore its shattered fifth pair of nerves by a few hydrophilus latipalpus beetles for lunch, and a sleep.