vels.
He seems to view with sceptical calm mirth,
Remains of Man among the river gravels.
Well, we'll relinquish Tertiary man,
Without immoderate grief, or lasting anguish.
The Pliocene, if we can grasp its plan,
Would seem an epoch when our race would languish.
The skeletons, cut animal bones, and flints,
Supposed to prove his presence, let's abandon;
But on some subjects we should like some hints;
When _did_ he come, and what has Sapient Man done
To justify his advent? Take him _now_,
Apart from retrospection prehistoric,
What is the being of the lifted brow
Doing at present? Strange phantasmagoric
Pictures of his proceedings flit before
The vision of alert imagination;
Playing the brute, buffoon, "bounder," or bore,
In every climate, and in every nation!
_Homo_--here wasting half his hard-earned gains
Upon Leviathan Fleets and Mammoth Armies,
Spending his boasted gifts of Tongue and Brains
In Party spouting. Swearing potent charm is
In grubbing muck-rake Money on the Mart,
Or squandering it on Turf, or Gambling Table.
Squabbling o'er the Morality of Art,
Or fighting o'er the Genesis of Fable.
You'll find him--as a Frank--in comic rage,
Mouthing mad rant, fighting preposterous duels,
Scattering ordures o'er Romance's page,
And decking a swine's snout with Style's choice jewels.
You'll see him--as a Teuton--trebly taxed,
Mooning 'midst metaphysical supposes;
Twirling a huge moustache, superbly waxed,
And taking pride in slitting comrades' noses.
You'll meet him--as a Muscovite--dead set
On making civic life a sombre Hades,
Shaking a knife with tyrant's blood red-wet,
Or--aping "Paris-goods" in art, dress, ladies.
You'll spy him--as a Yankee--gassing loud
About his pride, and yet chin-deep in snobbery;
Leaving State matters to corruption's crowd,
And justifying (literary) robbery.
Whilst as a Briton! Bless us, 'twould take time
To picture _Homo_ in his guise Britannic.
Here he is making a fine art of crime,
There he is fussing in a Puritan panic;
Here with MCMUCK he plays the prurient spy,
And there with OSCAR in a paroxysm
Of puerile paradox spreads to Cultchaw's eye
The fopperies of "Artistic Hedonism"!
Oh, EVANS, noting Man (_not_ Tertiary)
In Church or State, the Studio or the Tavern,
One wonders--not was he contemporary
With Danish Kjoekke