Sex

Amœbas at the start
Were not complex;
They tore themselves apart
And started Sex.

And Sex has ruled the earth
From then till this,
Producing woe and mirth
And pain and bliss.

Through Sex the seedling wakes
To cleave the ground;
'Tis really Sex that makes
The world go 'round.

It sublimates the mind
With noble themes,
Or sends it unrefined,
Suggestive dreams.

'Tis Sex that rules the lives
Of clods and kings;
It gives us books and wives
And other things—

Ambition, love, and strife
And all the ills
And ecstasies of life—
And Freuds and Brills.
Notes
Brills: A.A. Brills, who translated Sigmund Freud's writings on sex into English.
Publication date note: Guiterman, Arthur, The Light Guitar (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923): 15-16.