Classic Poem

JACK LONDON

In the hurly and the burly of the Early Pleistocene,
Ere the Adamistic Dynasty began,
I went roaming through the gloaming with my little forest queen,
Not a Monkey, nor an Evoluted Man.
Oh, we teased the Woolly Bear
And we pulled the Mammoth's hair
And we took the Snarly Tiger by the paw.
Though I've lived an awful lot,
I have never quite forgot
Human Nature as I knew it in the Raw.

I'm a Railer and a Trailer and a Sailor of the Seas
(In my Present Incarnation, let me add),
Anarchistic, atavistic, pessimistic, if you please,
For I've roved around the world and found it bad.
In the cold Alaskan camps,
On the road with grimy tramps,
On the ocean in the howling of the gale,
I have played a fitting part;
And I learned the writer's art
By inventing lies to keep me out of jail.

If you're burning to be earning over seven cents a word
You must cultivate the Brutal and the Rude.
Write a story that is gory; milder matter is absurd,
For the Public has no taste for Baby Food.
Give 'em Cruelty and Vice,
Give 'em Misery on Ice,
Give 'em rough-and-tumble, marlinspike, and gun;
Give 'em groans to wake the dead,
Make it Gristly, Ripe, and Red,
For they love their Mental Beefsteak underdone.