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Best Famous Stupidity Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Stupidity poems. This is a select list of the best famous Stupidity poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Stupidity poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of stupidity poems.

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Written by Paul Eluard | Create an image from this poem

The Human Face

 I.
Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must pass Through my innermost recesses So that I would meet someone I don’t listen to monsters I know them and all that they say I see only beautiful faces Good faces, sure of themselves Certain soon to ruin their masters II.
The women’s role As they sing, the maids dash forward To tidy up the killing fields Well-powdered girls, quickly to their knees Their hands -- reaching for the fresh air -- Are blue like never before What a glorious day! Look at their hands, the dead Look at their liquid eyes This is the toilet of transience The final toilet of life Stones sink and disappear In the vast, primal waters The final toilet of time Hardly a memory remains the dried-up well of virtue In the long, oppressive absences One surrenders to tender flesh Under the spell of weakness III.
As deep as the silence As deep as the silence Of a corpse under ground With nothing but darkness in mind As dull and deaf As autumn by the pond Covered with stale shame Poison, deprived of its flower And of its golden beasts out its night onto man IV.
Patience You, my patient one My patience My parent Head held high and proudly Organ of the sluggish night Bow down Concealing all of heaven And its favor Prepare for vengeance A bed where I'll be born V.
First march, the voice of another Laughing at sky and planets Drunk with their confidence The wise men wish for sons And for sons from their sons Until they all perish in vain Time burdens only fools While Hell alone prospers And the wise men are absurd VI.
A wolf Day surprises me and night scares me haunts me and winter follows me An animal walking on the snow has placed Its paws in the sand or in the mud Its paws have traveled From further afar than my own steps On a path where death Has the imprints of life VII.
A flawless fire The threat under the red sky Came from below -- jaws And scales and links Of a slippery, heavy chain Life was spread about generously So that death took seriously The debt it was paid without a thought Death was the God of love And the conquerors in a kiss Swooned upon their victims Corruption gained courage And yet, beneath the red sky Under the appetites for blood Under the dismal starvation The cavern closed The kind earth filled The graves dug in advance Children were no longer afraid Of maternal depths And madness and stupidity And vulgarity make way For humankind and brotherhood No longer fighting against life -- For an everlasting humankind VIII.
Liberty On my school notebooks On my desk, on the trees On the sand, on the snow I write your name On all the read pages On all the empty pages Stone, blood, paper or ash I write your name On the golden images On the weapons of warriors On the crown of kings I write your name On the jungle and the desert On the nests, on the broom On the echo of my childhood I write your name On the wonders of nights On the white bread of days On the seasons betrothed I write your name d'azur On all my blue rags On the sun-molded pond On the moon-enlivened lake I write your name On the fields, on the horizon On the wings of birds And on the mill of shadows I write your name On every burst of dawn On the sea, on the boats On the insane mountain I write your name On the foam of clouds On the sweat of the storm On the rain, thick and insipid I write your name On the shimmering shapes On the colorful bells On the physical truth I write your name On the alert pathways On the wide-spread roads On the overflowing places I write your name On the lamp that is ignited On the lamp that is dimmed On my reunited houses I write your name On the fruit cut in two Of the mirror and of my room On my bed, an empty shell I write your name On my dog, young and greedy On his pricked-up ears On his clumsy paw I write your name On the springboard of my door On the familiar objects On the wave of blessed fire I write your name On all harmonious flesh On the face of my friends On every out-stretched hand I write your name On the window-pane of surprises On the careful lips Well-above silence I write your name On my destroyed shelter On my collapsed beacon On the walls of my weariness I write your name On absence without want On naked solitude On the steps of death I write your name On regained health On vanished risk On hope free from memory I write your name And by the power of one word I begin my life again I am born to know you To call you by name: Liberty!


Written by John Dryden | Create an image from this poem

Mac Flecknoe

 All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the State: And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit To reign, and wage immortal war with wit; Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he Should only rule, who most resembles me: Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day: Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye, And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty: Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain, And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, Thou last great prophet of tautology: Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way; And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came To teach the nations in thy greater name.
My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung When to King John of Portugal I sung, Was but the prelude to that glorious day, When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way, With well tim'd oars before the royal barge, Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge; And big with hymn, commander of an host, The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd.
Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.
At thy well sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar: Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call, And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall.
About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast, that floats along.
Sometimes as prince of thy harmonious band Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.
St.
Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time, Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme: Though they in number as in sense excel; So just, so like tautology they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore The lute and sword which he in triumph bore And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.
Here stopt the good old sire; and wept for joy In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.
All arguments, but most his plays, persuade, That for anointed dullness he was made.
Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind, (The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd) An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight, There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight: A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains, Of all the pile an empty name remains.
From its old ruins brothel-houses rise, Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.
Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep, And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.
Near these a nursery erects its head, Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred; Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry, Where infant punks their tender voices try, And little Maximins the gods defy.
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear; But gentle Simkin just reception finds Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds: Pure clinches, the suburbian muse affords; And Panton waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known, Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.
For ancient Decker prophesi'd long since, That in this pile should reign a mighty prince, Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense: To whom true dullness should some Psyches owe, But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow; Humorists and hypocrites it should produce, Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.
Now Empress Fame had publisht the renown, Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.
Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet, From near Bun-Hill, and distant Watling-street.
No Persian carpets spread th'imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay: From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum.
Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way.
Bilk'd stationers for yeoman stood prepar'd, And Herringman was Captain of the Guard.
The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sat Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace, And lambent dullness play'd around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come, Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome; So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, That he till death true dullness would maintain; And in his father's right, and realm's defence, Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.
The king himself the sacred unction made, As king by office, and as priest by trade: In his sinister hand, instead of ball, He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale; Love's kingdom to his right he did convey, At once his sceptre and his rule of sway; Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young, And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung, His temples last with poppies were o'er spread, That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head: Just at that point of time, if fame not lie, On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.
So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook, Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
Th'admiring throng loud acclamations make, And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head, And from his brows damps of oblivion shed Full on the filial dullness: long he stood, Repelling from his breast the raging god; At length burst out in this prophetic mood: Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign To far Barbadoes on the Western main; Of his dominion may no end be known, And greater than his father's be his throne.
Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen; He paus'd, and all the people cry'd Amen.
Then thus, continu'd he, my son advance Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let other teach, learn thou from me Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ; Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage, Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit, And in their folly show the writer's wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence, And justify their author's want of sense.
Let 'em be all by thy own model made Of dullness, and desire no foreign aid: That they to future ages may be known, Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay let thy men of wit too be the same, All full of thee, and differing but in name; But let no alien Sedley interpose To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill.
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.
Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part; What share have we in Nature or in Art? Where did his wit on learning fix a brand, And rail at arts he did not understand? Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain? Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my ****, Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce? When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine? But so transfus'd as oil on waters flow, His always floats above, thine sinks below.
This is thy province, this thy wondrous way, New humours to invent for each new play: This is that boasted bias of thy mind, By which one way, to dullness, 'tis inclin'd, Which makes thy writings lean on one side still, And in all changes that way bends thy will.
Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.
A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ, But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin of wit.
Like mine thy gentle numbers feebly creep, Thy Tragic Muse gives smiles, thy Comic sleep.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thy self to write, Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart, though venom lies, It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram: Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou may'st wings display and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Or if thou would'st thy diff'rent talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.
He said, but his last words were scarcely heard, For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd, And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.
Sinking he left his drugget robe behind, Born upwards by a subterranean wind.
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion of his father's art.
Written by Dejan Stojanovic | Create an image from this poem

Ghazal of Love

I love the new sounds of love; 
Only the new cures an old love.
Watching the love making of waves and the shore I desire to be the wave of love.
There is no real hate in quarrels, Only stupidity and lack of love.
The Sun shone upon me And I shone upon the world with love.
I fly through memory To find a newborn love.
Sing to me sea, sing to me sky And the hiding world sprang out from love.
Written by Rg Gregory | Create an image from this poem

owl power

 they say in the local sanctuary
owls are the stupidest creatures
all this wisdom business is
the mythological media at work
but the shortest nosing into books
tells you even the mythic world
is bamboozled by the creature - no
two cultures being able to agree

the bird was cherished by minerva
hebrews loathed it as unclean
buddhists treasure its seclusion
elsewhere night-hag evil omen

the baker's daughter's silly cry
ungrateful chinese children
the precious life of genghis khan
sweet fodder to the owl's blink

in the end it's the paradox
i'll be what you want romantic fool
that scares elates about the owl
sitting in the dark and seeing all

not true not true the cynics say
the bloody fraudster's almost blind
dead lazy till its stomach rattles
its skill is seeing with its ears

ruthlessness stupidity
(transmogrified to wisdom)
make the perfect pitch for power
so proofed - why give a hoot for gods
Written by Kahlil Gibran | Create an image from this poem

Yesterday and Today XII

 The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles.
And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary.
He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination, and contemplating heavily his palace which stood upon a knoll like a birth-mark upon the cheek of a maiden.
His fancy revealed to him the pages of his life's drama which he read with falling tears that veiled his eyes and prevented him from viewing man's feeble additions to Nature.
He looked back with piercing regret to the images of his early life, woven into pattern by the gods, until he could no longer control his anguish.
He said aloud, "Yesterday I was grazing my sheep in the green valley, enjoying my existence, sounding my flute, and holding my head high.
Today I am a prisoner of greed.
Gold leads into gold, then into restlessness and finally into crushing misery.
"Yesterday I was like a singing bird, soaring freely here and there in the fields.
Today I am a slave to fickle wealth, society's rules, and city's customs, and purchased friends, pleasing the people by conforming to the strange and narrow laws of man.
I was born to be free and enjoy the bounty of life, but I find myself like a beast of burden so heavily laden with gold that his back is breaking.
"Where are the spacious plains, the singing brooks, the pure breeze, the closeness of Nature? Where is my deity? I have lost all! Naught remains save loneliness that saddens me, gold that ridicules me, slaves who curse to my back, and a palace that I have erected as a tomb for my happiness, and in whose greatness I have lost my heart.
"Yesterday I roamed the prairies and the hills together with the Bedouin's daughter; Virtue was our companion, Love our delight, and the moon our guardian.
Today I am among women with shallow beauty who sell themselves for gold and diamonds.
"Yesterday I was carefree, sharing with the shepherds all the joy of life; eating, playing, working, singing, and dancing together to the music of the heart's truth.
Today I find myself among the people like a frightened lamb among the wolves.
As I walk in the roads, they gaze at me with hateful eyes and point at me with scorn and jealousy, and as I steal through the park I see frowning faces all about me.
"Yesterday I was rich in happiness and today I am poor in gold.
"Yesterday I was a happy shepherd looking upon his head as a merciful king looks with pleasure upon his contented subjects.
Today I am a slave standing before my wealth, my wealth which robbed me of the beauty of life I once knew.
"Forgive me, my Judge! I did not know that riches would put my life in fragments and lead me into the dungeons of harshness and stupidity.
What I thought was glory is naught but an eternal inferno.
" He gathered himself wearily and walked slowly toward the palace, sighing and repeating, "Is this what people call wealth? Is this the god I am serving and worshipping? Is this what I seek of the earth? Why can I not trade it for one particle of contentment? Who would sell me one beautiful thought for a ton of gold? Who would give me one moment of love for a handful of gems? Who would grant me an eye that can see others' hearts, and take all my coffers in barter?" As he reached the palace gates he turned and looked toward the city as Jeremiah gazed toward Jerusalem.
He raised his arms in woeful lament and shouted, "Oh people of the noisome city, who are living in darkness, hastening toward misery, preaching falsehood, and speaking with stupidity.
.
.
until when shall you remain ignorant? Unit when shall you abide in the filth of life and continue to desert its gardens? Why wear you tattered robes of narrowness while the silk raiment of Nature's beauty is fashioned for you? The lamp of wisdom is dimming; it is time to furnish it with oil.
The house of true fortune is being destroyed; it is time to rebuild it and guard it.
The thieves of ignorance have stolen the treasure of your peace; it is time to retake it!" At that moment a poor man stood before him and stretched forth his hand for alms.
As he looked at the beggar, his lips parted, his eyes brightened with a softness, and his face radiated kindness.
It was as if the yesterday he had lamented by the lake had come to greet him.
He embraced the pauper with affection and filled his hands with gold, and with a voice sincere with the sweetness of love he said, "Come back tomorrow and bring with you your fellow sufferers.
All your possessions will be restored.
" He entered his palace saying, "Everything in life is good; even gold, for it teaches a lesson.
Money is like a stringed instrument; he who does not know how to use it properly will hear only discordant music.
Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and it enlivens the other who turns it upon his fellow man.
"


Written by Delmore Schwartz | Create an image from this poem

The Poet

 The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry 
His power is his left hand
 It is idle weak and precious
His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him
 like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience 
And this he may be destroyed by the gold of the light
 which never was
On land or sea.
He may be drunken to death, draining the casks of excess That extreme form of success.
He may suffer Narcissus' destiny Unable to live except with the image which is infatuation Love, blind, adoring, overflowing Unable to respond to anything which does not bring love quickly or immediately.
.
.
.
The poet must be innocent and ignorant But he cannot be innocent since stupidity is not his strong point Therefore Cocteau said, "What would I not give To have the poems of my youth withdrawn from existence? I would give to Satan my immortal soul.
" This metaphor is wrong, for it is his immortal soul which he wished to redeem, Lifting it and sifting it, free and white, from the actuality of youth's banality, vulgarity, pomp and affectation of his early works of poetry.
So too in the same way a Famous American Poet When fame at last had come to him sought out the fifty copies of his first book of poems which had been privately printed by himself at his own expense.
He succeeded in securing 48 of the 50 copies, burned them And learned then how the last copies were extant, As the law of the land required, stashed away in the national capital, at the Library of Congress.
Therefore he went to Washington, therefore he took out the last two copies Placed them in his pocket, planned to depart Only to be halted and apprehended.
Since he was the author, Since they were his books and his property he was reproached But forgiven.
But the two copies were taken away from him Thus setting a national precedent.
For neither amnesty nor forgiveness is bestowed upon poets, poetry and poems, For William James, the lovable genius of Harvard spoke the terrifying truth: "Your friends may forget, God may forgive you, But the brain cells record your acts for the rest of eternity.
" What a terrifying thing to say! This is the endless doom, without remedy, of poetry.
This is also the joy everlasting of poetry.
Written by Elizabeth Jennings | Create an image from this poem

A Performance Of Henry V At Stratford-Upon-Avon

 Nature teaches us our tongue again
And the swift sentences came pat.
I came Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn.
And I seethed with language - Henry at Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war In Ireland and the Middle East.
Here was The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words Solid and dutiful.
Aspiring hope Met purpose in "advantages" and "He That fights with me today shall be my brother.
" Say this is patriotic, out of date.
But you are wrong.
It never is too late For nights of stars and feet that move to an Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked, The theatre is our treasury and too, Our study, school-room, house where mercy is Dispensed with justice.
Shakespeare has the mood And draws the music from the dullest heart.
This is our birthright, speeches for the dumb And unaccomplished.
Henry has the words For grief and we learn how to tell of death With dignity.
"All was as cold" she said "As any stone" and so, we who lacked scope For big or little deaths, increase, grow up To purposes and means to face events Of cruelty, stupidity.
I walked Fast under stars.
The Avon wandered on "Tomorrow and tomorrow".
Words aren't worn Out in this place but can renew our tongue, Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life.
Written by Ted Hughes | Create an image from this poem

Tractor

 The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of.
All night Snow packed its open entrails.
Now a head-pincering gale, A spill of molten ice, smoking snow, Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.
It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred.
Beyond it The copse hisses - capitulates miserably In the fleeing, failing light.
Starlings, A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking Through the degrees, deepening Into its hell of ice.
The starting lever Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother - While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined In one solid lump.
I squirt commercial sure-fire Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity I've stepped into.
I drive the battery As if I were hammering and hammering The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly Into happy life.
And stands Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly Like a demon demonstrating A more-than-usually-complete materialization - Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon Shouting Where Where? Worse iron is waiting.
Power-lift kneels Levers awake imprisoned deadweight, Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-****.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience Of iron to the cruelty of iron, Wheels screeched out of their night-locks - Fingers Among the tormented Tonnage and burning of iron Eyes Weeping in the wind of chloroform And the tractor, streaming with sweat, Raging and trembling and rejoicing.
Written by Czeslaw Milosz | Create an image from this poem

Account

 The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.
Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety, The little whisper which, thought it is a warning, is ignored.
I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride, The time when I was among their adherents Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.
But all of them would have one subject, desire, If only my own -- but no, not at all; alas, I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.
The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late.
And the truth is laborious.
Berkeley, 1980.
Written by G K Chesterton | Create an image from this poem

On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes

 Impetuously I sprang from bed,
Long before lunch was up,
That I might drain the dizzy dew
From the day's first golden cup.
In swift devouring ecstasy Each toil in turn was done; I had done lying on the lawn Three minutes after one.
For me, as Mr.
Wordsworth says, The duties shine like stars; I formed my uncle's character, Decreasing his cigars.
But could my kind engross me? No! Stern Art-what sons escape her? Soon I was drawing Gladstone's nose On scraps of blotting paper.
Then on-to play one-fingered tunes Upon my aunt's piano.
In short, I have a headlong soul, I much resemble Hanno.
(Forgive the entrance of the not Too cogent Carthaginian.
It may have been to make a rhyme; I lean to that opinion.
) Then my great work of book research Till dusk I took in hand- The forming of a final, sound Opinion on The Strand.
But when I quenched the midnight oil, And closed the Referee, Whose thirty volumes folio I take to bed with me, I had a rather funny dream, Intense, that is, and mystic; I dreamed that, with one leap and yell, The world became artistic.
The Shopmen, when their souls were still, Declined to open shops- And Cooks recorded frames of mind In sad and subtle chops.
The stars were weary of routine: The trees in the plantation Were growing every fruit at once, In search of sensation.
The moon went for a moonlight stroll, And tried to be a bard, And gazed enraptured at itself: I left it trying hard.
The sea had nothing but a mood Of 'vague ironic gloom,' With which t'explain its presence in My upstairs drawing-room.
The sun had read a little book That struck him with a notion: He drowned himself and all his fires Deep in a hissing ocean.
Then all was dark, lawless, and lost: I heard great devilish wings: I knew that Art had won, and snapt The Covenant of Things.
I cried aloud, and I awoke, New labours in my head.
I set my teeth, and manfully Began to lie in bed.
Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, So I my life conduct.
Each morning see some task begun, Each evening see it chucked.
But still, in sudden moods of dusk, I hear those great weird wings, Feel vaguely thankful to the vast Stupidity of things.
Envoi Clear was the night: the moon was young The larkspurs in the plots Mingled their orange with the gold Of the forget-me-nots.
The poppies seemed a silver mist: So darkly fell the gloom.
You scarce had guessed yon crimson streaks Were buttercups in bloom.
But one thing moved: a little child Crashed through the flower and fern: And all my soul rose up to greet The sage of whom I learn.
I looked into his awful eyes: I waited his decree: I made ingenious attempts To sit upon his knee.
The babe upraised his wondering eyes, And timidly he said, "A trend towards experiment In modern minds is bred.
"I feel the will to roam, to learn By test, experience, nous, That fire is hot and ocean deep, And wolves carnivorous.
"My brain demands complexity," The lisping cherub cried.
I looked at him, and only said, "Go on.
The world is wide.
" A tear rolled down his pinafore, "Yet from my life must pass The simple love of sun and moon, The old games in the grass; "Now that my back is to my home Could these again be found?" I looked on him and only said, "Go on.
The world is round.
"

Book: Reflection on the Important Things