Page:Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (C.J. Dennis, 1918).djvu/43

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So I loved and died, and the ages sped Till the time of my second birth; When I took my place in the cosmic race, And again came down to earth. Once more we met. Ah, Love, not yet! You were far above my state! For how could I raise my mollusc gaze To a virtuous vertebrate?

Again we died, and again we slept, And again we came to be— I as an anthropoidal ape, And you as a chimpanzee. You as a charming chimpanzee, With a high patrician air; And I watched you waltz from tree to tree As I slunk in my lowly lair.

And yet again, in an age or so, We met, and I mind the sob I sobbed when I found that I was—what? And you were a thingumbob. You had sold your tail for a kind of soul, You had grown two thumbs beside; And I knew again that my love was vain, So I went to the woods and died.