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About This Poem
Nothing in Excess
Nothing in Excess
(the second Delphic maxim of Apollo)
A mixture of the brute and the divine
Man is,
That’s why the strife in his soul never
Ends,
As the eternal adversaries for superiority
Strive,
In the depths of everyone’s divided
Heart,
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The brute:
Limited by the dimensions of space and
Time,
Intimidated by the oppressive notion of cruel
Alienation,
Frightened by the savage idea of inglorious
Temporality,
And horrified by the torturous thought of merciless
Mortality,
Eager to pull man down to the material world
Desires,
And with the heavy chains of bodily pleasures
Him to tie!
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The divine:
Unrestricted by the dimensions of space and
Time,
Animated by the lofty idea of unity with
The ONE,
Strengthened by the noble thought of clement
Eternity
And exalted by the gracious conception of
Comforting immortality,
To raise Man up to the immaterial heavens
Yearns,
And with the purified delights of spirit him,
To nourish!
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When the ruthless brute, victorious from the
Battle emerges
And body’s barbaric-cry of victory
Shouts,
Benign spirit, inside the prison of here and now
Is found ,
From where, silently, the devastation of divinity,
Observes.
-----------
When eternal spirit triumphant out the war
Appears,
And the illumination of the soul, jubilantly,
Proclaims,
The perishable brute, even from its basic needs,
Is deprived,
Thus, slowly, painfully and persistently is fainting,
Away.
-------------
Only when the brute and the divine a truce
Declare
And their powers under the banner of universal
Reason unite
Rendering to each other, at the proper time,
Its equal share,
Harmony is established in our souls and the
Human is born!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
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