C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Song of the Ichthyosaurus
By Joseph Viktor von Scheffel (18261886)
T
There’s a flashing in the sea;
There’s a tearful Ichthyosaurus
Swims hither mournfully!
Compared with the good old times,
And don’t know what is the matter
With the Upper Jura limes!
Does naught but quaff and roar;
And the Pterodactylus lately
Flew drunk to his own front door!
Grows worse with every stratum;
He kisses the Ichthyosauresses
Whenever he can get at ’em!
This epoch will soon be done:
And what will become of the Jura
If such goings-on go on?
Turns suddenly chalky pale;
He sighs from his steaming nostrils,
He writhes with his dying tail!
Died the whole Saurian stem:
The fossil-oil in their liquor
Soon put an end to them!
Which here he doth indite,
In the form of a petrified album-leaf
Upon a coprolite!