Page:Masterpieces of American Humor (Little Blue Book 959).djvu/28

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"Speak, Oh, man, less recent! Fragment fossil! Primal pioneer of pliocene formation, Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum Of volcanic tufa!

"Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium;

Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogamy; Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions Of earth's epidermis!

"EoMioPliowhatsoe'er the 'cene' was That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder

Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches Tell us thy strange story!

"Or has the professor slightly antedated By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,

Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted For cold-blooded creatures?

"Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest When above thy head the stately Sigillaria Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant Carboniferous epoch?