Woodwind Quartet
1. The Socratic School
When a man climbs thirty, forty, forty-four,
He's fairly sure that all he has felt and seen
Is more than the youth could claim who felt so sure
Nothing could teach him a thing at high sixteen.
But now he turns and views the long decline,
Down to dim and doddering ninety-nine,
Conceit uncovers — Off with the sublime!
There's nothing he will ever know in time.
Could none of those old primary schools of youth
And schools of life teach him a tiny tithe
Of what they learned? Can one never touch the truth?
Must man be an ever wretched child and writhe?
Better to grow like Socrates who knew
He knew nothing, and smiled when he found it true!
2. Credo
Do fishes gleam with hope or flowers feel
The need of living still another life?
Do drowsy snakes, when skins begin to peel,
Dream of a sky where there's an end to strife?
Which of the idols cause such head to nod?
Whom do the insects ask for one more day?
Do all the toads that dread the coming sod
Hop with the hope their present lives will pay?
Or does Man kneel alone with his high fancies?
Why can't he rest awhile among his senses?
No sooner does the sun return, he dances
With a gold and silver round of future tenses.
He who can make the most of transient skies,
It seems to me deserves the only prize.
3. Skeptical Moment
Just as one feels the infinite is near
And one can now embrace the whole of space,
The earth reminds the inattentive ear
That insects also love their little place.
Though this wild animal is but a flea
It spoils the forest and destroys the sky.
One has to feel the world was made for three:
The Macrocosm, microcosm, I.
This winding Cape is a wellnigh perfect sod
On which to settle the flesh and free the soul.
But how did omniscient omnipresent God
Come to give such an imp a mighty role?
No man can contemplate Divinity
When fleas begin to bite Infinity?
4. Generation
The wistful dream comes over any father
Who has given his best to help his children grow:
When I am gone will these grown youngsters bother
To think proud thoughts of the man who loved them so?
And thus young poets feel about their name:
If one or two of my verses outlive me,
Will they be happy or hide their heads in shame
If folk should say of the father, Who was he?
And if the poems live (O flattering thought!)
And survive through each succeeding generation —
Grandchildren now of what the parent sought —
What will they think of their long-gone relation?
The poet is but a fool who worries now,
Having given his roots to make the poems grow.
When a man climbs thirty, forty, forty-four,
He's fairly sure that all he has felt and seen
Is more than the youth could claim who felt so sure
Nothing could teach him a thing at high sixteen.
But now he turns and views the long decline,
Down to dim and doddering ninety-nine,
Conceit uncovers — Off with the sublime!
There's nothing he will ever know in time.
Could none of those old primary schools of youth
And schools of life teach him a tiny tithe
Of what they learned? Can one never touch the truth?
Must man be an ever wretched child and writhe?
Better to grow like Socrates who knew
He knew nothing, and smiled when he found it true!
2. Credo
Do fishes gleam with hope or flowers feel
The need of living still another life?
Do drowsy snakes, when skins begin to peel,
Dream of a sky where there's an end to strife?
Which of the idols cause such head to nod?
Whom do the insects ask for one more day?
Do all the toads that dread the coming sod
Hop with the hope their present lives will pay?
Or does Man kneel alone with his high fancies?
Why can't he rest awhile among his senses?
No sooner does the sun return, he dances
With a gold and silver round of future tenses.
He who can make the most of transient skies,
It seems to me deserves the only prize.
3. Skeptical Moment
Just as one feels the infinite is near
And one can now embrace the whole of space,
The earth reminds the inattentive ear
That insects also love their little place.
Though this wild animal is but a flea
It spoils the forest and destroys the sky.
One has to feel the world was made for three:
The Macrocosm, microcosm, I.
This winding Cape is a wellnigh perfect sod
On which to settle the flesh and free the soul.
But how did omniscient omnipresent God
Come to give such an imp a mighty role?
No man can contemplate Divinity
When fleas begin to bite Infinity?
4. Generation
The wistful dream comes over any father
Who has given his best to help his children grow:
When I am gone will these grown youngsters bother
To think proud thoughts of the man who loved them so?
And thus young poets feel about their name:
If one or two of my verses outlive me,
Will they be happy or hide their heads in shame
If folk should say of the father, Who was he?
And if the poems live (O flattering thought!)
And survive through each succeeding generation —
Grandchildren now of what the parent sought —
What will they think of their long-gone relation?
The poet is but a fool who worries now,
Having given his roots to make the poems grow.
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