Professor Newcomer

    Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard
    For buying an engine so powerful
    That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder
    He ran it with.
    But here is a joke of cosmic size:
    The urge of nature that made a man
    Evolve from his brain a spiritual life -
    Oh miracle of the world! -
    The very same brain with which the ape and wolf
    Get food and shelter and procreate themselves.
    Nature has made man do this,
    In a world where she gives him nothing to do
    After all - (though the strength of his soul goes round
    In a futile waste of power.
    To gear itself to the mills of the gods) -
    But get food and shelter and procreate himself!