As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Marketplace. Peering through reverent fingers, I watch them flourish and fall; But the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. We were living in trees when they met us. They taught us each in turn, That water will certainly wet us, and fire will certainly burn. But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind — So we left them to teach the gorillas, whilst 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 Marketplace. But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come home, That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. With the dreams our world is built on, they were hopelessly out of touch. They denied the moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch! They denied that wishes were horses, they denied a pig had wings, So we followed 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 our men lost reason and health, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, "The sinner degrades himself." In the Carboniferous Epoch, we were promised Abundance for All, By robbing selected Peter to pay 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." As the Permian Era ended, we were promised a Righteous Cause, To fight against Oppression or take back what once was ours. But all the Support for our Troops didn't stop us from losing the war, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said "Be careful what you wish for.” In Scriptures old and new, we were promised the Good and the True, By heeding the Authorities and shunning the outcast few. But our bogeys and solutions were as real as goblins and elves, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings
