The Gods of the Copybook Heading
- 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 Breath 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 worshipped 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 neighbour 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 Heading said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
- In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
- By robbing selected 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 Heading 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 God 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!
- Rudyard Kipling
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