Report on the Sexless Behavior of Microscopic Immortals

LIFE would not be so complex
Were there no such thing as sex;
And what’s more, and worth broadcasting,
Life would then be everlasting
For with differentiation
In the cell came copulation,
And with copulation, Death.
That’s what Sex contributeth.
They have adumbrated this
In the Book of Genesis.

But the Paramecium
Never thinks of Kingdom Come;
His is life without perdition
For he multiplies by fission,
And, while busy multiplying,
Simply has no time for dying,
Nothing left with which to die:
All he does is multiply,
Turn himself into a tenth
And so on until the nth.
’Tis the same with the bacillus:
Sex alone is what can kill us.

Could we hear those birds bacillar
Sit ting in a sightless tree,
What they sing would prove a thriller;
But we cannot hear them sing:
“Grave, where is thy victory?
Sex, where is thy sting?”