THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS
By Rudyard Kipling. 1919
As I pass through my incarnation 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 Stilten; 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 we 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 as 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 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 Headings said:
"If you don't
work you die."And the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued
wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to be-
lieve 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 Programs 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,
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter
return!
