- As I pass through my incarnations in every age
and race,
- I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the
Market-Place.
- Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and
fall.
- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast
them all.
- We were living in trees when they met us. They
showed us each in turn,
- That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly
burn:
- But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of
Mind,
- So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the
March of Mankind.
- We moved as the Spirit listed. They never
altered their pace,
- Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the
Market-Place;
- But they always caught up with our progress, and presently
word would come
- That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights
had gone out in Rome.
- With the Hopes that our World is built on they
were utterly out of touch.
- They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was
even Dutch.
- They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig
had Wings.
- So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these
beautiful things.
- When the Cambrian measures were forming, They
promised perpetual peace.
- They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of
the tribes would cease.
- But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to
our foe,
- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to
the Devil you know.”
- On the first Feminian Sandstones we were
promised the Fuller Life
- (Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving
his wife)
- Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason
and faith,
- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The
Wages of Sin is Death.”
- In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised
abundance for all,
- By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
- But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our
money could buy,
- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you
don’t work you die.”
- Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their
smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
- And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to
believe it was true
- That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make
Four—
- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain
it once more.
- As it will be in the future, it was at the birth
of Man—
- There are only four things certain since Social Progress
began:—
- That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to
her mire,
- And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling
back to the Fire;
- And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new
world begins
- When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for
his sins,
- As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will
burn,
- The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter
return!
