May Kendall, “The Lay of the Trilobite”

A mountain’s giddy height I sought,
     Because I could not find
Sufficient vague and mighty thought
     To fill my mighty mind;
And as I wandered ill at ease,
     There chanced upon my sight
A native of Silurian seas,
     An ancient Trilobite.

So calm, so peacefully he lay,
     I watched him even with tears:
I thought of Monads far away
     In the forgotten years.
How wonderful it seemed and right,
      The providential plan,
That he should be a Trilobite,
     And I should be a Man!

And then, quite natural and free
     Out of his rocky bed,
That Trilobite he spoke to me
     And this is what he said:
‘I don’t know how the thing was done,
     Although I cannot doubt it;
But Huxley – he if anyone
     Can tell you all about it;

‘How all your faiths are ghosts and dreams,
     How in the silent sea
Your ancestors were Monotremes –
     Whatever these may be;
How you evolved your shining lights
     Of wisdom and perfection
From Jelly-Fish and Trilobites
     By Natural Selection.

‘You’ve Kant to make your brains go round,
     Hegel you have to clear them,
You’ve Mr Browning to confound,
     And Mr Punch to cheer them!
The native of an alien land
     You call a man and brother,
And greet with hymn-book in one hand
     And pistol in the other!

‘You’ve Politics to make you fight
     As if you were possessed:
You’ve cannon and you’ve dynamite
     To give the nations rest:
The side that makes the loudest din
     Is surest to be right,
And oh, a pretty fix you’re in!’
     Remarked the Trilobite.

‘But gentle, stupid, free from woe
     I lived among my nation,
I didn’t care – I didn’t know
     That I was a Crustacean.*
I didn’t grumble, didn’t steal,
     I never took to rhyme:
Salt water was my frugal meal,
     And carbonate of lime.’

Reluctantly I turned away,
     No other word he said;
An ancient Trilobite, he lay
     Within his rocky bed.
I did not answer him, for that
     Would have annoyed my pride:
I merely bowed, and raised my hat,
     But in my heart I cried: –

‘I wish our brains were not so good,
     I wish our skulls were thicker,
I wish that Evolution could
     Have stopped a little quicker;
For oh, it was a happy plight,
     Of liberty and ease,
To be a simple Trilobite
     In the Silurian seas!’

May Kendall, 1861-1943 – “The Lay of the Trilobite” from Penguin Book of English Verse