The Gods of the Copybook Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Heading

Rudyard Kipling

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 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 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.”

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!