Lead us, Evolution, lead us <br />Up the future's endless stair; <br />Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us. <br />For stagnation is despair: <br />Groping, guessing, yet progressing, <br />Lead us nobody knows where. <br /> <br />Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow, <br />In the present what are they <br />while there's always jam-tomorrow, <br />While we tread the onward way? <br />Never knowing where we're going, <br />We can never go astray. <br /> <br />To whatever variation <br />Our posterity may turn <br />Hairy, squashy, or crustacean, <br />Bulbous-eyed or square of stern, <br />Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless, <br />Towards that unknown god we yearn. <br /> <br />Ask not if it's god or devil, <br />Brethren, lest your words imply <br />Static norms of good and evil <br />(As in Plato) throned on high; <br />Such scholastic, inelastic, <br />Abstract yardsticks we deny. <br /> <br />Far too long have sages vainly <br />Glossed great Nature's simple text; <br />He who runs can read it plainly, <br />'Goodness = what comes next.' <br />By evolving, Life is solving <br />All the questions we perplexed. <br /> <br />Oh then! Value means survival- <br />Value. If our progeny <br />Spreads and spawns and licks each rival, <br />That will prove its deity <br />(Far from pleasant, by our present, <br />Standards, though it may well be).<br /><br />Clive Staples Lewis<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/evolutionary-hymn-2/
