The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

My creed, without circumlocution,
I thus deliver clear and pat:
I do believe in Evolution,
In Protoplasm, and all that!
I do believe in all the 'ologies,
(Except The-ology, of course!)
But common, cocksure, useful knowledge is
The compass which directs my course.

I don't believe in God or Gammon,
In powers above or priests below,
But I've some slight respect for Mammon
As representing status quo;
I hate all efforts revolutionary,
All systems that subvert the State,
For Law is slow and evolutionary,
And those low down have got to—wait.

Unless (that fact I should have stated!)—
Unless they're led by Lights like me;
For Evolution, though 'tis fated,
By gentle Force may further'd be;
In fact, I hold like my existence,
Since nothing in the world is free,
That Force to which there's no resistance
Is always justified, per se!

I turn from all insipid dishes
Cook'd by the fools of Laissez faire,
And much prefer the loaves and fishes,
So long as I can get my share;
I think the Land is not the Nation's,
But those who grab'd it in the past;
Statutes, therefore, of limitations,
Should make all thieves secure, at last!

I don't believe men free and equal
(I think so? Feel my bumps, and tell!)
Of all such fads the sorry sequel
Is anarchy and social Hell;
I do believe in ‘facts’ prodigiously,
Class, label, place them on the shelf,
I do believe (almost religiously!)
In that most precious Fact, Myself!

I'm many-sided, many-coloured,
Socialist, Individualist;
I do believe that man a dullard
Who seeks philanthropies of mist:
I hold that General Booth's tyrannical,
And all his scheme of social aid
Is just Religion turn'd mechanical—
A Barrel-organ badly played!

I think that Liberty's a swindle!
We look upon it with a smile—
I and my dear Professor Tyndall,
The Peter Parleys of Carlyle!
He knew the ‘nigger’ was a ‘servant’
By law of God, or (what's the same)
By laws proclaimed by prophets fervent
Of Nature's Tory end and aim!

421

I turn from every sect and schism,
God and all gods I leave behind,
I sneer at even Positivism,
Because it deifies Mankind:
Such creeds are either false or flighty,
Since men are flesh and flesh is grass . . .
And yet . . . one knowing God Almighty
Regards me—from the looking-glass!

I do believe that Superstition,
And what they call ‘the larger Hope,’
Have fled before the new condition
Of self-reliance and of soap:
Free from the falsehoods of Divinity,
Breaking the bonds by preachers spun,
I leave the old creed of the Trinity
For the new creed of Number One!

Moral and physical diseases
May be effaced in course of time,
But, left to do whate'er he pleases,
Man leaps from folly into crime:
We've got to wash and comb and teach him,
Learn him the laws of self-control,
Wean him from doctrinaires who teach him
Rubbish about that gas, his soul!

Be clean, be calm, be thrifty! These are
My chief injunctions to the Poor,
Give Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar,
Don't even begrudge a little more!
Be very careful in your reading,
Avoid imaginative stuff;
Study the rules of cattle-breeding,
And when you pair, cry ‘quantum suff.’

To advance the human race I'm willing,
So long as it is shrewdly done,
But never will I give one shilling
To any ‘fad’ beneath the sun;
While the worst fad of all is ‘Piety,’
With all its cant of Heaven o'erhead,
Philanthropy's a bad variety
Of that same fad, when all is said!

And so I sit with calm pulsations,
Watching the troubled human fry,
Examining their agitations
With careful microscopic eye!
I, Thomas, Omnium Scrutator,
Finding most creatures mean or base,
Despite your Hominum Salvator!
Man's duty is—to keep his place!