Poem by Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden

Natural Selection

I HAD found out a gift for my fair,
I had found where the cave-men were laid;
Skull, femur, and pelvis were there,
And spears, that of silex they made.

But he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who would dig up an ancestor's grave--
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such filial regard for the Cave.

My shelves, they are furnished with stones
All sorted and labelled with care,
And a splendid collection of bones,
Each one of them ancient and rare;

One would think she might like to retire
To my study--she calls it a "hole!"
Not a fossil I heard her admire,
But I begged it, or borrowed, or stole.

But there comes an idealess lad,
With a strut, and a stare, and a smirk;
And I watch, scientific though sad,
The Law of Selection at work.

Of Science he hasn't a trace,
He seeks not the How and the Why,
But he sings with an amateur's grace,
And he dances much better than I.

And we know the more dandified males
By dance and by song win their wives--
'Tis a law that with Aves prevails,
And even in Homo survives.

Shall I rage as they whirl in the valse?
Shall I sneer as they carol and coo?
Ah no! for since Chloe is false,
I'm certain that Darwin is true!

1. The Ideal
2. In the Garden
3. The Sister of Mercy
4. The New Orthodoxy
5. To a Hyacinth in January

Print

1312 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version