Brandon's Poetry

A Ballade of Evolution
By:Grant Allen

In the mud of the Cambrian main
Did our earliest ancestor dive:
From a shapeless albuminous grain
We mortals our being derive.
He could split himself up into five,
Or roll himself round like a ball;
For the fittest will always survive,
While the weakliest go to the wall.

As an active ascidian again
Fresh forms he began to contrive,
Till he grew to a fish with a brain
And brought forth a mammal alive.
With his rivals he next had to strive
To woo him a mate and a thrall;
So the handsomest managed to wive,
While the ugliest went to the wall.

At length as an ape he was fain
The nuts of the forest to rive,
Till he took to the low-lying plain,
And proceeded his fellows to knive.
Thus did cannibal man first arrive
One another to swallow and maul:
And the strongest continued to thrive,
While the weakliest went to the wall.

Some facts about Allen’s Life:

-educated at home until he was 13.
-In his mid-twenties he became a professor a Queen’s College.
-His father was very religious (a protestant minister), Allen was a agnostic.
-He left his professorship, in 1876 he returned to the UK, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works.
-He died at his home on Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England on October 25, 1899.

Thesis: Allen uses a metaphors, similes, and imagery within’ this poem greatly to describe a lot about  evolution supporting Darwin’s theory of evolution.


Questions:

1) What do you think this poem is about? Explain?
2) How are similes and metaphors used throughout the poem? What do they describe?
3) With the knowledge Allen’s father was religious why do you think Allen wrote this poem?
4) What do you think is meant by In the mud of the Cambrian main(1st line 1st stanza)?
5) Why do you think Allen believed and supported Darwin’s theory of evolution even though very little people did during that period of time did?