Стихи и эссе

In our morale must lie our strength:
So, that we may behold at length
    Routed Apollo's
Battalions melt away like fog,
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
     Which runs as follows: —

Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,

Thou shalt not write thy doctor' thesis
    On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
     Administration.

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires

Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
     Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
     A social science.

Thou shalt not be on friendly terms

With guys in advertising firms,
     Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
     Who wash too much.

Thou shalt not live within thy means

Nor on plain water and raw greens.
                     If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;

1946

THE QUEST

1. The Door

Out of it steps the future of the poor,
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
The red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great person eye it in the twilight for

A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,

And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland

That waited for her in sunshine, and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

2. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work; instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly

Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun
And colored beads to soothe a savage eye.

In the theory they were sound on Expectation

Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,

A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

3. The Crossroads