English Dictionary

Ah, what a sight were you when first / By freak of matter Adam* burst / Through Simian womb! / Scant then man’s prate / Of human nature’s high estate. / Yet, though his limbs with pile were rough, / And though his tail was long enough / (You smile, reformed orang-utang! / Have I not seen th’ appendage hang / About your ends, till wear and tear / Curtailed the terminating hair? / Type of the subtype Simiadæ! / King of the genus Chimpanzee! / There! feel the place! ’tis even now / In loco if not in statu quo), / Th’ apesses treated with disdain— / Half-handed thing with double brain, / With brow protruding all before, / Trachea formed to squeak and roar, / With shortened arms and thumbless feet, / Circular paunch, and rounded seat; / That chattered with such couthless sound, / And walked, not crawled, upon the ground. / Such your forefather. Yet, when he / Was grown to lusty puberty, / Superior ingenuity / Taught him with score of apes to mate, / And thus kind to propagate.