Procreation

Robert William Service

It hurts my pride that I should be
     The issue of a night of lust;
Yet even Bishops, you’ll agree,
     Obey the biologic ‘must’;
Though no doubt with more dignity
     Than we of layman dust.

I think the Lord made a mistake
     When he designed the human race,
That man and angel in the make
     Should have brutality for base.
Jehovah might have planned at least
     Not to confound us with the beast.

So with humiliation I
     Think of my basic origin;
And yet with some relief I sigh,—
     I might have been conceived in sin;
Instead of being, I believe,
     The offspring of a nuptial eve.

So when I look in beauty’s face,
     Or that of king or saint or sage,
It seems to me I darkly trace
     Their being to a rutting rage . . .
Had I been Deity’s adviser
     Meseems I might have planned it wiser.

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