In the first gray dawn of history
A Paleolithic man
Observed an irate mammoth--
Observed how his neighbors ran:
And he sat on a naked boulder
Where the plains stretched out to the sun,
And jowl in hand he frowned and planned
As none before had done.
Next day his neighbors passed him,
And still he sat and thought,
And the next day and the next day,
But never a deed was wrought.
Till the fifth sun saw him flaking
Some flint where the rocks fall free--
And the sixth sun saw him shaping
A shaft from a fallen tree.
Enak and Oonak and Anak
And their children and kith and kin,
They paused where they watched him working,
And they smiled and they raised the chin,
And they tapped their foreheads knowingly--
As you and I have done--
But he--he had never a moment
To mark their mocking fun.
And Enak passed on to bury
His brother the mammoth slew.
And Oonak, to stay his starving,
With his fingers grubbed anew.
And Anak, he thought of his tender spouse
An ichthyosaurus ate--
Because in seeking the nearest tree
She had reached it a trifle late.
* * * * *
Around the Council fire,
More beast and ape than man,
The hairy hosts assembled,
And their talk to the crazed one ran.
And they said, “It is best that we kill him
Ere he strangle us in the night,
Or brings on our head the curse of the dead
When the thundering heavens light.
“It is best that we rid our caverns
Of neighbors such as these--
It is best--” but the Council shuddered
At the rustle of parting leaves.
Out of the primal forest
Straight to their midst he strode--
Weathered and gaunt--but they gave no taunt--
As he flung to the ground his load.
They eyed them with suspicion--
The long smooth shafts and lean:
They felt of the thong-bound flint barbs--
They saw that the work was clean.
Like children with a plaything,
When first it is understood,
They leapt to their feet and hurled them--
And they knew that the act was good.
They pictured the mighty mammoth
As the hurtling spear shafts sank,
They pictured the unsuspecting game
Down by the river’s bank;
They pictured their safe-defended homes--
They pictured the fallen foe....
And the Fool they led to the highest seat,
Where the Council fires glow.