[550] Evolution
Guest poem submitted by Jose de Abreu, <jose@> :
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.
Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.
We were amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man's hand;
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees
Or trailed through the mud and sand.
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.
Yet happy we lived and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came and the eons fled
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day
And the night of death was past.
Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms
In the hush of the moonless nights;
And, oh! what beautiful years were there
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.
Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing side
The shadows broke and soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.
I was thewed like an Auruch bull
And tusked like the great cave bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o'er the plain
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed
We mumbled the bones of the slain.
I flaked a flint to a cutting edge
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland lank
And fitted it, head and haft;
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the mammoth came to drink;
Through the brawn and bone I drove the stone
And slew him upon the brink.
Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came tramping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof
We fought and clawed and tore,
And check by jowl with many a growl
We talked the marvel o'er.
I carved that fight on a reindeer bone
With rude and hairy hand;
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood and the right of might
Ere human laws were drawn,
And the age of sin did not begin
Till our brutal tush were gone.
And that was a million years ago
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here tonight in the mellow light
We sit at Delmonico's.
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is dark as jet,
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet -
Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags;
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones
And deep in the Coralline crags;
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?
God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds
And furnished them wings to fly;
We sowed our spawn in the world's dim dawn,
And I know that it shall not die,
Though cities have sprung above the graves
Where the crook-bone men make war
And the oxwain creaks o'er the buried caves
Where the mummied mammoths are.
Then as we linger at luncheon here
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.
-- Langdon Smith
|
I was just surfing around and came across this poem... really unusual for a love
poem, I felt. So I thought it might look good on Minstrels:-) The catch being
that I couldn't find much in the way of bio details on the poet, or any other
poems but this one.
Jose.
Bio (all I could find!)
... one such individual, unknown even among biologists, is British naturalist
Langdon Smith, who conducted excellent biological research, and also wrote
exquisite poetry. Smith was born in Scotland in 1877, and came to the United
States when he was 14. Practically nothing is known about his education, except
that in his early twenties he was engaged by the Museum of Natural History in
New York to do research, and that he was often invited by scientific societies
to lecture. He also wrote articles on scientific subjects for newspapers. He
wrote a particularly beautiful poem about evolution titled "A Tadpole and a
Fish." A friend of his found this poem, which Smith had carelessly laid aside,
and recognized it as something exceptional. He prevailed upon Smith to submit
the poem to some of the best papers for an opinion. The first to examine the
poem was the editor of the New York Herald, who gave Smith a check for $500, a
considerable sum in those times, for the right to publish it. Smith became ill
and returned to England, where he died some months later of tuberculosis. The
poem was later published under the title "Evolution" in 1909 and was included in
anthologies published in 1922 and 1924.
From: AFrannk@
I heard this poem for the first time, about 40 years ago. I have since
looked for it, off and on, but have never found a copy of it until now.
Thank you so much for including it in your list.
Frank Farmer
Afrannk@
From: "Chris_and_Lauren Magaldi" <clmagaldi@>
My favorite poem! I found it a couple of years ago and fell in love with
it. Thank you for including it.
From: Shrmpee@
Hi,
As a collector or unusual and rare books and poems I stumbled across a hard
bound copy of EVOLUTION and was also intriqued by it's beauty and subject
matter. The copy I found was in pretty good shape in a Utica, New York attic
home and owned by a reader dating it 1913. Copyright on the slim volume is
1909 by L.E. Basset and Company, Boston. The forward and aft was written by
Lewis Allen Browne and gives more insight into the poet and accomplishments
of Smith. The forward mentions that he was born in Kentucky in 1858, but no
mention of his birth in Scotland as reported. He served in the Comanche and
Apache wars as a trooper and reported these campaigns to the New York Herald
paper. He also went to Cuba as a correspondent for the Herald. He wrote "On
the Pan Handle"- a novel. If anyone has info on this book, I'd be interested!
Anyone can write me for more.
Shrmpee@
From: VeggyStan@
Very romantic poem. My Ex-wife and I both loved it (as Agnostics). But she's
gone and all I have is the beauty of the words.
Veggystan @aol.com
From: "Carl Fredholm" <ghildy@>
I found this poem about four years ago in the poetry book, A Treasury of
the Familiar, and I've loved it from that day forward. Thank you for
putting it on the net.
glady morgan
From: Gene Thorne <gthorne99@>
The bio given above by Jose for the author differs sharply from the one
given by Martin Gardner (of Scientific American fame) in his essay "When
You Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish". This essay was originally printed in
the Antioch Review for Fall 1962 and reprinted in Gardner's Order and
Surprise (Oxford University Press 1984) - which is where I read it.
According to Smith's bio in Who's Who in America 1906-07, Smith was born on
January 4, 1858 in Kentucky. For more details please see the essay, but
interestingly Smith spent most of his career as a journalist for various
newspapers, including the New York Herald. This is about the only common
factor I see between Gardner's and Jose's bios. There are enough
differences that I am sure Jose's Smith and Gardner's Smith are two
different people. I have no idea which one really wrote the poem, but I
would love to know more details. Jose, what is the source of your
biographical sketch?
-Gene
From: "Lars_Olof.Bjorn@" <Lars_Olof.Bjorn@fysbot.lu.se>
I have known and loved "Evolution" for a long time. I first encountered
it in "The Pocket Book of Popular Verse" printed in New York in 1945. It
is one of the most beautiful love poems I know. I made a Swedish
translation and read it at my wife's PhD graduation luncheon; this
translation has since been published with illustrations in the journal
Forskning och Framsteg (1986, issue 2) and reprinted in another journal.
In connection with this publication I found some other material
concerning the poem in our university library. There is a German and a
Danish translation, but I remember that I did not think that they are
very good and not accurate. Smith wrote his poem during many years, and
he read it at his wife's birthday at Delmonico's restaurant in New York,
which explains the fourth stanza from the end. I hope that Delmonico's
have the poem on the wall (if the restaurant still exists); we do in our
university department.
Lars Olof Bjorn, retired botany professor
Lars_Olof.Bjorn@
From: "Penny Nichols" <penny5577@>
Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
From: "Dawn Marie Bowles" <dawnmariebowles@>
I've only been able to find "Evolution" in The Best Loved Poems of the
American People published in 1936 by Doubleday. It is one of the first
poems I remember reading growing up. Who knows, perhaps it was
subconscious inspiration for my love of biology AND romance. My family's
copy of the book is tattered and torn now but no matter where I go I
carry it with me. Thank you for putting "Evolution" on the net so that
more people can enjoy it. Maybe we can start a trend and then find out
more about Langdon Smith.
From: Tombtome@
Beautiful! My father used to quote part of this poem at the dinner table, as
an admonition to better manners. Thank you, thank you.
From: dlhinkel <dlhinkel@>
I went in search of this poem after reminiscing about my recently deceased
grandfather. When I was about ten, we were down in his old farm gravel
pit. I found some sort of fossil in one of the rocks, and he recited the
entire thing, word for word. This was not unusual, he could do this with
countless poems. I can still remember the feeling it gave me to hear him
spout off the words as if he had written them himself. Thanks for posting it.
DL Hinkel, Student
From: "Lee Motteler" <geomapcorp@>
Like D.L. Hinkel, my grandfather (who died in 1956) knew this poem in
its entirety and quoted it often. As with many poems and spirituals he
had memorized, he did not recall the title. Years later my scholarly
older brother found it and proceeded to memorize it himself! I have a
couple of tantalizing tidbits to add to the data on Langdon Smith. First
of all, the copy I found some years ago and photocopied (sorry, I don't
have the provenance) is preceded by this editor's note: "The author of
this curious poem was a New York journalist, who had formerly been a
telegraph operator. Strange to say, this is the only poem of distinction
that he is known (to me) to have written." I'm afraid that's not much
help, and still doesn't solve the riddle of just who he was. The 4th
edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1992), under Langdon
Smith on page 651, cites the first four lines of the poem, followed by
the source, listed as follows: 'A Toast to a Lady' in The Scrap-Book
April 1906. So the poem's title apparently went through an evolution of
its own. Some toast, eh? I don't know where my grandfather first read
it, but I'm quite sure it was soon after it was published, as he was
about 30 at that time. I have rarely had a poem affect me the way this
one does every time I read it. Let's keep digging (and surfing), and
perhaps we'll learn more!
Aloha from Hawaii
Lee
From: "Zane C. Motteler" <zcm@>
I am the "scholarly older brother" mentioned above by Lee.
As Lee says, our grandfather frequently quoted "Evolution", along
with many other poems. He had a photographic memory and
needed to read something only once to have it by heart for
the rest of his life. I found "Evolution" in a paperback collection
of poems when I was a boy in the 1940's or 50's. I memorized
it myself, and can still recite the whole thing, but unlike Granddad,
I don't have a photographic memory, so it took me a while to
learn it. The book that I got it from is long gone, but my memory
of the poem is strong. I quoted it to my wife when we were
courting, and I still recite parts of it to her. It is indeed a beautiful
love poem.
Zane
From: "vze48pzr" <vze48pzr@>
Ahhh,
Just wanted to read this poem. My favorite of all times. We're moving
and all my books are packed. Thanks.
From: "eaariniello" <eaariniello@>
THanks for resurrecting this poem,I had it memorized in high school in
the 50's.I have shared it with every woman I ever loved.They all
appreciated it.I have need of it again so am glad it came up quickly on
my search.Good Bio on Smith as well.
From: Martin and Melinda Meadows <mmeadows30@>
Funny thing about this poem. I discovered it in the mid 1980-s while in
college. I enjoyed it very much and memorized it word for word. One of my
favorite poems. Over the years I began to forget portions of it and began
trying to relocate it. With the advent of the world wide web in the 1990's I
began using search engines to find it (I couldn't recall the author's name).
I've searched once or twice in the past couple of years ... and this morning
something prompted me to look for it again. I was pleased and surprised to
find this website today. I won't forget the author's name again! Thanks!
Martin Meadows
From: "paul alford" <plalford@>
I am an American Indian (Shawnee) When I was growing up my Father would
recite this poem when we were camping. It became a part of me. Thanks
for sharing.
Paul plalford@
From: "Kevin M. Sullivan" <kmspi@>
Long ago, during the mid-1960's, Jean Shepherd, a brilliant writer and
storyteller, had a nightly radio program on WOR in New York City. His
on-the-air reading of "Evolution" was the first time I heard (or heard
of) this poem. In 1968, I purchased a copy of a book titled "The Best
Loved Poems of the American People" and was delighted to find
"Evolution" printed there.
I still have the book, and I still love the poem.
From: ChevyHarley765@
Evolution has been one of my favorite poems for years. My mom read it to me
when I was young and it has stuck with me for a long time. I have most of it
memorized, but finding a page like this reminds me that there are some
people that you are just meant to know or be with. It is a reaffirmation of
all of my beliefs. Thanks for having the page!
Jayme
From: Robert Magoffin <rcmagoffin@>
I was introduced to Evolution by my grandfather: he recited it
magnificently--it held me spellbound. Then he told me that he recited it
to my grandmother when he proposed to her, one night when they were having
dinner. The rest is family history. To hear it spoken in all it's
splendor is a moving, indelible experience.
From: "Teresa Kintner Gunnell" <tess@>
Just like so many others, I found this poem as a child. My father's copy
of "Treasury of the Familiar" was all but memorized by me when I was
little, and I still miss that book. My friend Martin (yes, *that*
Martin!) quoted this the other day and I had a rush of memory. Thank
goodness (again and again) for the Minstrels.
tess
From: Progres51@
I found a nice 1909 copy of Langston's Evolution just the other day. It's in
great shape, and the poem is indeed beautiful. This was actually my first
encounter with one of his books, so it's a pleasant surprise. My book is in good
condition and nicely illustrated. On 3/9/1936 someone wrote on the first page
"To the 'Superlative Tadpole," from a 'Poor Old Fish." The poem is a nice find
From: apbjvb@ (Arthur burgess)
My mother (born l886) told me that my father had quoted this poem to her
when they were courting. She married him (nine years later)--but then
"Evolution" is a lengthy process. Thanks for making it available. We
are using it for a Poetry Reading on Valentine's Day at our Unitarian
Church.
From: Arthur burgess <apbjvb@>
My father read this poem to my mother (she told me)--some 85 years ago.
She married him nine years later--but then "Evolution" i s a slow
process.!
From: "Lynn Koiner" <Koiner@>
I first heard this poem read to my elementary school class in the 1950s
by a NUN! When I was in college, I found this poem at the Library of
Congress in Washington DC. I wrote it down by hand. In the late 1990s,
I copied it onto a computer that subsequently died. I felt that this
poem was lost to me.
I am so grateful that it is on the Internet. It is my favorite. Yet, it
was listed as being written by Anonymous.
Lynn Koiner
From: "Goodier Family" <family@>
Although this appears as a sweet and romantic poem, it disgusted me that
evolution was taken as fact and a work of God. Rather, God made us all as
humans, not any other way, and our relationship with Him and others is, to
me, so much more romantic!
From: Loveratheart47f@
"Evolution" by Langdon Smith connects us all through time, space and
eternity...it transcends, comforts and quiets the voice of our inner wailing child
that anguishes over the destiny of it's own "end"...My sadness at having to live
a solitary life apart from siblings that prefer to remain estranged has been
unfortunate and hurtful throughout my years but "Evolution" has inspired me to
write and dedicate the following to them: Let us meet in the woods and find
our souls among the evergreens, where the earth is our mother and the wind our
father, we can roam, our spirits free, rejoice in our lives, in what we have
learned and cherish how far we have come, and love one another for what we have
been and what we have yet to become, stand close to the fire and away from
the chill, and let the warmth sink in, and if we should part, to never
forget...the knowing...that we...are one.(written by myself, Mary E. Querey White) Date
of this comment - 3/30/2004...loveratheart47f@
From: "Sandra Boynton" <Piscestwo@>
My sister-in-law is a librarian and a patron asked her if she could find
a poem called, "When you were a tadpole and I was a frog." She did a lot
of searching and found,"Evolution. She then brought it to our drama
group to read and we all loved it. We are a group of 55 to 66 year olds
and had never heard it all though we are all well-read(or thought we
were.) I just sent it to my two daughters and a good friend. It is a
beautiful poem. I tend to believe he probably was born in Scotland, land
of the story tellers. A friend in Florida
From: "John Bryant" <johnbryant@>
A lovely poem, yes, and amusing to see the upset it caused with an anti-evolutionist (above). In Smith's time evolution was a much hotter topic, so it is interesting that he grafted onto this theory yet another which is also radical from a traditionally-Christian viewpoint, namely, something akin to the Hindu belief in the transmigration of souls. It is possible that Smith meant this metaphorically -- simply as a way of emphasizing the strength of his love, but it is a theory which is believable to those like myself who may be atheists, but who believe in the possibility of the continuation of life after death in some form ('spiritualism'). It is this belief which makes the poem both hopeful and also deeply sad; for while there is hope that love, unlike diamonds, is forever, there is also the fear that once lovers are disunited, it may be a very long time before they can once again unite.
From: "Gentle Wind Accounts Payable" <accts@>
Thank you! I haven't seen my copy of this in years. I found it when I
was four: typed by my grandfather in the late 1920's, someone had placed
it in the family bible. (I later relished the irony of that one!) My
grandfather, too, could recite it by heart, as I found when I asked him
to read it to me. I was educated by progressive nuns who also believed
in the theory of evolution, so it always made good sense to me.
kitkatko@
From: "M Leyden" <mleyden@>
I read this poem over sixty years ago in an air-raid shelter when death
was all around. It moved andsustained me and even now in my eighties it
can still move me to tears and I would like to add my own appendix:
"Together throughout eternity we follow nature's wish; forever true
since the days when you were a tadpole and I was a fish"
Margaret, in England
From: "maria mchenry" <miabear@>
I came across this poem in a diary that I picked up at an antique store. I was picking out names that the author of the diary (1920's flapper girl) wrote down, and she wrote this poem down and his name. Pretty cool.
maria mchenry
miabear@
From: "veronica houghton" <verahoughton@>
I am now retired and my first retirement present from me, to me, was a
computer. I first came across the poem when I was a young girl and very
much in love. The poem got lost, as did my soulmate, and I only
remembered the first two verses. I tapped in a few lines on the search
engine and wept tears of joy when I read it. I love the poem it brings
back so very many happy memories for me. Although I have noticed a few
changes to the poem on different sites. e.g. on this site the line,
'When over the nursing side', like many other versions is not the same
as I read over 40yrs ago. Which was, 'When over the nursing sod.' Which
I think is how it was first written (and it rhymes). Also, 'Where the
crook- boned men made war', was, I think, the original.
Best wishes, Vera England.
From: jlll40 <jlll40@>
Fascinating to read all this. I am 77 years old and in my family
archives there is what must have been a privately printed pamphlet
(app. 6"x8"). The title is "Evolution" and that is all the information
there is - no author, no publisher, no date. I grew up hearing the poem
and loving it. In my copy, the lines in verse six read "o'er the
musing sod". In verse 9, the line is "and cheek by jowl.... In verse 10
the last line reads "Till our brutal tusks were gone". In verse 12, my
copy says "Caroline" crags. Verse 13, "Tremados beds" and "Where the
crook-boned men". This may be nit-picky but I have every reason to
presume that my version is correct.
What a pleasure this site is. Thank you.
Elizabeth Langhorne
--Boundary_(ID_quiURPdLR4d7dqFIEZ9nJg)
Content-type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Fascinating to read all this. I am 77 years old and in my family
archives there is what must have been a privately printed pamphlet
(app. 6"x8"). The title is "Evolution" and that is all the information
there is - no author, no publisher, no date. I grew up hearing the
poem and loving it. In my copy, the lines in verse six read "o'er the
musing sod". In verse 9, the line is "and <underline>cheek</underline>
by jowl.... In verse 10 the last line reads "Till our brutal
<underline>tusks </underline>were gone". In verse 12, my copy says
"Caroline" crags. Verse 13, "<underline>Tremados</underline> beds" and
"Where the crook-boned men". This may be nit-picky but I have every
reason to presume that my version is correct.
What a pleasure this site is. Thank you.
Elizabeth Langhorne
--Boundary_(ID_quiURPdLR4d7dqFIEZ9nJg)--
From: Eleanor <elcy@>
This has always been my favourite poem. Many years ago when I was in
University, (University of Toronto - late 1950s) I wanted to do an
independent paper on it for a poetry course. I was told it was 'not
critically acclaimed' and therefore not acceptable to the professor for
my project. I was devastated at the time and felt quite angry towards
the entire educational establishment as a result. To this day, I think
it was an unfair decision. .
At that time, I went so far as to find out that Langdon Smith was born
in Kentucky and that he married a woman quite a bit younger than himself
named Marie Antoinette WRIGHT in New York City in the late 1890s.
Although I no longer have my actual research, I remember that the dates
worked out so that he would have written the poem shortly after his
marriage, making her presumably the inspiration behind the poem.
Once I had that information, I think I really wanted to find out more,
or at least as much, about her as I did about him. What I found
really intriguing was the incongruity of her name - with its frivolous
connotations - that seemed so much at odds with the sentiment of the
poem. Of course, she may have spent her life trying to live down her
name and because of it rather than in spite of it, perhaps she was a
very deep, thoughtful, philosophical person.
Or maybe she was the epitome of everything the name Marie Antoinette
suggests - and maybe it was that superficial quality that Smith
recognized in himself. Even frivolous people can have soul mates.
If anyone has any further thoughts on this, I'd be delighted to hear
from them.
Eleanor
From: Ktgm4@
I like your ending of this was one of my late husband;s favorite poems and as
we were and are very much soul mates I'm sure we go back to the tadpole and
the fish.
From: Melanie Cravens <foxfur90@>
I discovered this poem in my Literature book in Jr. High School in the late 1970's. I loved it then and I love it now. I hadn't thought of it in years but for some reason the other day, I asked my teenaged sons if they'd heard of it and quoted the first lines. They had no idea what I was talking about. Thank you for putting it up here. Now I can show them that their mother does know something! And I can share it with my soulmate, their father.
I've always thought that what this poem says is beautiful. A love so strong and deep that it's not just for this lifetime, but goes back to the beginnings of time, and will last through all the rest of time.
Melanie
From: "bolandcrafts" <bolandcrafts@>
From: "Ed Mulrenin" <edmulrenin@>
Thank you for setting up this page to share these thoughts with other
"evolutionists."
Ed Mulrenin
From: hlehman@ Tue Oct 25 16:57:34 2005
Hey, where are all my fellow New Yorkers from the 50's / 60's who spent
many a sleepless night listening to the great Jean Shepard read
Evolution? It made high school tolerable the next day, provided you
found some other nerd wearing a 'FLICK LIVES' button. Good stuff.