The Darwinian Theory

(John Young)



Oh! Have you heard the news of late

About our great original state?

If you have not, I will relate

The grand Darwinian Theory.

Take care as you saunter along the street

How you tread on the dust beneath your feet;

You may crush a cherub in embryo sweet

For each atom may hold a germ complete,

Which, by some mystical process slow

And selective power, to a monkey grow,

And from that to a man, the truth to show

Of the grand Darwinian theory.

Oh! Hokey, pokey, Kanuwan

From nothing to something, from monkey to man

Oh! This is the great developing plan

Of the grand Darwinian theory.

The beginning of all was a little cell

Composed of what substance, no one can tell,

Endowed with the power to develop and swell

Into general life by this theory.

With a power to select what it wished to be

A fungus or flower, a bush or a tree,

A fowl of the air or a fish of the sea,

A cow or a sheep, a bug or a flea,

Or, if tired of these it may change its plan

Be a cat or a dog or O-rang-oo-tan,

But culminating, at last, in a man

By this grand Darwinian theory.

Oh! Hokey, Pokey, pow'r of selection,

Choose yourself your particular section,

A peasant, or lord with a great connection;

By the grand Darwinian theory.



Your attention, ladies, let me win it;

Just think of this theory for a minute,

Is there really not something distressing in it ---

To think that you sprang from a monkey?

That delicate hand was a monkey's paw

Those lovely lips graced a monkey's jaw,

Those handsome ankles, so trim and neat

One time surmounted a monkey's feet!

Those sparkling eyes a monkey did lend,

That graceful form from one did descend

From a monkey you borrowed the Grecian bend,

By this grand Darwinian theory.

Oh! Hokey, pokey, protoplasm

'Tween monkeys and men there is no chasm

Why shouldn't you clasp them to your bosom?

They're infant men, in theory.



Some murderers we, far worse than Cain,

For darker deeds our character stain;

For thousands of brothers we've eaten and slain

By the grand Darwinian theory.

While sitting at breakfast, and picking the wing

Of a pigeon or grouse, or some other thing,

Or dining on mutton --- or lamb, in the spring ---

Or on salmon or trout, or on cod or on ling...

Gaze into the future and, say, can't you see

What horrible cannibals we all must be,

Devouring the flesh, which may yet become we,

By the grand Darwinian theory.

Oh! Hokey, pokey, ringo-ging

The cannibal islands once had a King

Who ate his own kin; but to us he's no thing

When compared in the light of this theory.



But why should the theory end with man?

If he has been less, surely more he can

And should be, by the great developing plan

Of the grand Darwinian theory.

Why should he not on this earth yet be

An angel, or god, like Mercury

With a wing on each shoulder, each ankle and knee?

Oh! how delightful then it will be

When sighing, and wishing your sweetheart to see

To wipe your beak, and just upwards flee

Like birds --- and meet your love on a tree

On the top of a hill, by this theory.

Oh! Hokey, pokey, ringo-ging,

The world then literally on the wing,

No street cabs needed, or any such thing

By the grand Darwinian theory.



From the Scottish Students Songbook (1929 edition)

@evolution @animal

filename[ DRWNTHRY

play.exe DRWNTHRY

RG

===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY