This is a tale both tall and true
Which I shall now relate:
Of courage, skill and derring-do,
And of the Hand of Fate.

Our tale begins long years ago
In Egypt's ancient land,
A bold young lad who feared no foe,
Was whisk'd up from the sand.

An alien being, old and grim,
A being quite decay'd,
Required someone with youth and vim,
His body to invade...

Our tale skips on ten thousand years
To nineteen-twenty-eight.
An ancient artefact appears—
The strangest find to date.

The experts puzzled, one and all
About this mighty thing;
A circle, twenty-two feet tall
With glyphs around the rim.

Catherine Langford, daughter of
An archaeologist,
Took a gold charm which looked quite odd—
(It never would be miss'd.)

Now sixty years and more have pass'd.
We're in a lecture hall.
The audience listens quite aghast.
They don't like this at all.

The speaker's views are very weird—
Against the current trend.
It may be that his words are fear'd;
His bright career may end.

The listeners walk out one by one
To show their great disdain,
And yet he bravely carries on,
Till no one does remain.

But no. A lady yet does stay,
(We have met her before).
Catherine Langford, old and grey,
Is watching by the door.

Daniel Jackson is the man
Who told his august peers,
The pyramids are older than
They thought, by many years.

His lecture lost him all he had,
His post, his grant, his home.
His prospects now look very bad.
In rain, he stands alone.

But all's not lost, I'm pleased to say.
You need not sigh nor sob—
For Catherine Langford bids him stay
And offers him a job.

When next we see our hero brave,
He's deep below the ground,
But in a silo, not a grave,
And he's still safe and sound.

Beneath a mountain, (Creek, it's named),
Some glyphs he must translate.
For two years, experts far more famed
Have failed the same mandate

Another hero now we see,
One, Colonel Jack O'Neil.
From life he wishes to be free;
The reason, I'll reveal.

By accident, his son is dead—
Was shot by Jack's own gun.
He plans to put it to his head,
But ere the deed is done...

He's whisk'd away for one last job
Which you or I would ne'er do.
It is enough to make you sob,
And so is his new hair-do.

And so to Creek Mount., off he goes,
And quickly takes control,
Which gets right up our Cath'rine's nose
For that had been her role.

He's there to do whate'er we need
To keep safe our fair world
If Dr. Jackson should succeed
Where all before have fail'd.

In two short weeks, the job is done,
So Catherine lets Dan know
Just what he has been working on -
The Stargate she does show.

And now its time to activate
This ancient artefact.
Dan sees, as it starts to rotate,
The final glyph it lack'd

With mighty 'whoosh!' a link is made
The galaxy across;
A wormhole through the æther sway'd
To distant Abydos.

A probe to this strange place is sent
To test the alien air.
But, oh dear! One thing's evident,
The glyphs are diff'rent there.

The mission now they must abort
But Daniel's full of awe,
For his imagination's caught—
He's longing to explore.

He blithely says he's sure he can
Identify the glyphs;
The others aren't as keen as Dan -
They're full of buts and ifs.

At last they trust what Dan does say
(Although he's just surmisin').
Then one by one they're on their way
Through the event horizon.

Now, ere Doc. Jackson left our Earth,
Miss Langford took his arm.
She loan'd him something of great worth—
That old Egyptian charm.

He did not know its name right then.
(It's called 'The Eye of Ra'.)
To him 'twas just a talisman
To keep him safe afar.