Okay, I’m really baffled now. Twenty hours ago I posted a quote by Nikola Tesla. Tumblr featured it under “science,” and in this short time it got more than 300 notes, more than any other post of mine ever got. Two months ago, tumblr featured a photo of the Atomium nearing completion under “vintage,” but in all that time it only got about half as many notes. What shall I say? Tesla rocks!

WHILST our joys with wine we raise,
Youthful Bacchus we will praise.
Bacchus dancing did invent;
Bacchus is on songs intent;

Bacchus teacheth Love to court,
And his mother how to sport;
Graceful confidence he lends;
He oppressive trouble ends;

To the bowl when we repair,
Grief doth vanish into air;
Drink we then, and drown all sorrow;
All our cares not knows the morrow;

Life is dark, let’s dance and play,
They that will be troubled may;
We our joys with wine will raise,
Youthful Bacchus we will praise.

— Anacreon, translated by Thomas Stanley, 1651.

Quite contrary to WordPress, Tumblr users in general show little interest in poetry. So the four shares of Rudyard Kipling’s The Gods of the Copybook Headings, while not much in absolute numbers, are nevertheless quite noteworthy.

Other posts that gained some new attention recently are Dupont’s photo portrait of Puccini, and, to a lesser extent, the presumed portrait of Claudio Monteverdi.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

— Rudyard Kipling, 1919.