The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kupling, The JAK Project, Elaine Diane Taylor

[No One Special]

A couple of musical renditions of a great Rudyard Kipling poem that sadly tells the story of our times.

Gods of the Copybook Headings
Rudyard Kipling 'Gods of the Copybook Headings' Poem plus Cinamatic original music by the JAK Project. A perfect marriage of great timeless poetry and monumental composition.
An Aural and Visual experience by TheJAKPROJECT:
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A folk song rendition by Elaine Diane Taylor
Some liberties are taken with the words as written by Kipling.
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The Poem

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 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 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 bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[No One Special]

It is sad we are likely nearing the end game of the socialist experiment. Kipling wrote this poem in 1919 after his son was killed in the First World War. He surely foresaw and was foretelling the end of the British Empire.

We will be doing quite a bit if we somehow manage to turn this thing around here in America.

Some say history is a wheel. Some say the truest thing about history is that men do not learn from it.

The referenced "Gods of the Market Place" are not financiers or bankers, nor in anyway is Kipling referring to the economy. The Gods of the Market Place are demagogues; that is, they include amongst their number politicians.

[Anima Mundi]

History repeats itself because we don’t listen.