{9}
Next, who gave men their laws? and what reason or cause the young
brave overawes when in need of a squaw,
Till he thinks it a shame to wed one of his name, and his conduct
you blame if he thus breaks the law?
For you still hold it wrong if a lubra {10} belong to the self-
same kobong {11} that is Father of you,
To take HER as a bride to your ebony side; nay, you give her a
wide berth; quite right of you, too.
For her father, you know, is YOUR father, the Crow, and no
blessing but woe from the wedding would spring.
Well, these rules they were made in the wattle-gum shade, and were
strictly obeyed, when the Crow was the King. {12}
Thus on Earth's little ball to the Birds you owe all, yet your
gratitude's small for the favours they've done,
And their feathers you pill, and you eat them at will, yes, you
plunder and kill the bright birds one by one;
There's a price on their head, and the Dodo is dead, and the Moa
has fled from the sight of the sun!
MAN AND THE ASCIDIAN--A MORALITY
"The Ancestor remote of Man,"
Says Darwin, "is th' Ascidian,"
A scanty sort of water-beast
That, ninety million years at least
Before Gorillas came to be,
Went swimming up and down the sea.
Their ancestors the pious praise,
And like to imitate their ways;
How, then, does our first parent live,
What lesson has his life to give?
Th' Ascidian tadpole, young and gay,
Doth Life with one bright eye survey,
His consciousness has easy play.
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