Classic Poem

A voice from Leeds will rouse amain
Each pre-historic pre-historian
To fight his battles o'er again
Very Victorious—and Victorian
The day when Darwin's rule began.
And all his pupils' reading ended
In learning The Descent of Man
And not how far it has descended.

Each grey-haired sage will grin and gape
At Samson in the antique pass
Wielding the thigh-bone of an age
And not the jaw-bone of an ass
And stir the joke that's just as old
And dusty as the dear old dunce
For us, who need not to be told
He often uses both at once.

Pert youth may mock at Samson's fury
May snigger when the storm has burst
May hint that foremen of a jury
Sometimes consult the jury first.
But when Darwinians, roused and hot
Spring to their feet by slow degree
Who says Sir Arthur Keith is not
Discovering antiquities.