Part 3

Is there more, then, to the beginning?

“Yes.”

Thus, we ask from the powers of the night,
Not immortality, nor youth, nor birth,
But only that we glimpse the enigmatic—
That riddle solved of the conundrum.

“Then we must go downward and pastward
Into the Depths of the Deep.”

Here we stand, each holding fast,
Onto our other half.

“Follow.”

The door resists at first.
Then creaks into the crypt,
Powdered rust streaming from the hinges.

Here the answer to All is kept;
But not all was pleasant—it speaks of death,
Of life’s end, separate by just a breath.

“To learn the Secrets—what IS and e’er WAS,
One must brave the crypt and ghost of cause.

“So into the deep we go, without pause,
To look down, ever down, no self to keep—
Through birth, death, and the shade of sleep,
Through paths unkempt, under swept—

“To the deep,

“Through the cloudy strife of this hazy life,
Through the equations of eternity—
Their non-paternity nor maternity,
Past the realm of the things which seem or are,
Even o’er the steps of the remotest bar.

Down, down,

“Where the mind whirls round and round,
As the ear draws forth the sound,
As the eye sees the light,
And of the dark the fright.

“Down, down,

“Beyond all death, despair, love, and sorrow,
Past yesterday, today, and tomorrow—
The body’s guide but the logic of the ‘know’.

“Down through the fog, the not, and the void,
Where ‘God’ and everything fail; Oh, zoids!

“Down,

“Where reigns the night, where the air is thin,
Where the sky and stars are not, but within,
Where the glorious have not their throne,
Where there is one presiding, all alone.

“Down, down,

“To the fathoms of the cryptic;
Where substance slept with arithmetic,

“Toward the spark yet nursed by embers,
To the first and last the universe remembers,
To seek the gem that shines—the wealth of mines,
The jewels so treasured by thee and thine.”

What truth accelerates life’s momentous gem,
Letting the motto become ‘Carpe diem?
Who seized the moment or lost its momentum,
Wearing not the time as its royal diadem?

“Down, down!

“We guide thee, we must carry thee;
We’re illumination beside thee…

“Down!

“Fear not the proof—
It’s the beauty of the truth:

“Above the ground you were ever born again,
When the roseate hearts were cleansed by dew,
And lucky were you if spring found you new,
As every blossom on the bush blew full.

“When these wonders the new morning bestrew,
The beauty of truth was all that you “knew”.

“Life’s hardships there were softened by beauty,
All its weaknesses strengthened by the truth—
As when roses blossomed, like realizations,
Beauty itself bloomed from the well of truth.

“For now, rarely enough, existence is left aside,
And yet the essence ever has its other side.”

When sadness brooded over the morrow,
I once visited the deep well of sorrow.
There enshrined, inseparate, Beauty said,
‘Twas from me that sadness you borrowed.’

“Down, down,

“The essence beckons you back home,
As the contained-container is the poem.”

So do we live the life of art,
Each playing our part?

“Nay, that is not life, nor a part, bit,
For there’s another dimension to it.
Art and poetry enrich human experience
But they’re not substitutes for the living of it.”

Like Keats’ figures on the urn, blest,
Should we live life any less?

“No—because what is deathless is also lifeless!”

“Down, down!”

Truth and beauty must be inseparable,
Although this is seemingly imponderable.

On that sphere above,
Soft breezes ever blew, caressing me and you
As we kissed the roses new and drank their dew.

Reason and passion then merged into one,
As truth and beauty made their rendezvous.

“Down, down, ever down—

“Through the antiquity, past all of the known—
Arriving at the lowest, remotest throne,
One of the highest perfection,
For it is of the two contrasting directions.

“Plus and minus from little came to be,
But while most charges rejoined, some went free,
The pluses forming matter, energy,
And the minuses forming gravity.

“Opposite twins rule the causing call,
The positives and negatives constituting All.”

Here the enigma of the ever immortal
Is undone and unloosed through its portal:
The Theory of Everything mortal—
The Idea for which we’ve opened the door to.

“Down, down,

“To the end at last!”

Here be the lawless and the formless
Of the unordered, uncreated scene.

Here the causeless reigns supreme.

…

(The timeless-formless contains ev’ry path,
Useless as the Library of All Books—
Its sum of information is zero,
Yet, one of the avenues became ours.)

Sorry if I'm unkind, but here a reminder of what real poetry is like, not this crap personal doggerel.

The Telephone - Robert Frost

“When I was just as far as I could walk
From here to-day,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say—
You spoke from that flower on the window sill—
Do you remember what it was you said?”

“First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”

“Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word—
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say—
Someone said ‘Come’—I heard it as I bowed.”

“I may have thought as much, but not aloud.”

“Well, so I came.”

As you may have guessed by now, I love Robert Frost. He has a reputation as something of a misogynist, but I love the way he portrays women and relationships between women and men in his poetry. I think this may be his most romantic poem. Willing to be convinced otherwise. Not particularly philosophical, so I'll put in the final verses from "Two Tramps in Mud Time."

The time when most I loved my task
These two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You’d think I never had felt before
The weight of an axhead poised aloft,
The grip on earth of outspread feet.
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the woods two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps.)
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

Gives me chills whenever I read it.

Only when love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes.

Damn, damn, damn.

I the morning village I stood
Minding only bussiness of mine
The etalage offered what it could
A peeking under hood

My bitch on my side
Looking in young year
No need to abide
There was nothing to fear

Then the arrival arrived
Harsh words were spoken
Ratio deprived
What an artistic token

Flanel smart cell phones
Used like dumb smart gun
Speking were underones
Reason able on the run

Jealous minds spoke to police
Troop were called out for
The soft morning breeze
Had better in store

The door of his store
Received foot from my hand
How stupid his pussy galore
The artman that I can't stand

Police was called to
But they didn't arrive
Anticipation I stalled to
But no jar to jive

Later that nice day
Jealous supplier supplied
It gave, though unknow yet, me way
A disturbing of me was implied

Police accounted objective
But didn't account
My story subjective
Tails went wiggling round

It got me a place
To show of my art
That black jealous face
I will make it start

Seringes will stuff I
Plastic guns will I fill
Thinking of buff-eye
On his provided canvas the colors will drill

:nerd:

The Impossible Recipe Accomplished

Explaining the Cosmos is as easy as pie:
It’s an endless extravagance beyond the sky,
Which shows that matter’s very readily made—
Underlying energy raising the shades.

This All sounds rather like an ultimate free lunch,
For the basis is already made, with no punch,
It ever being around, as is, never a ‘was’—
Everywhere, in great abundance quite unheard of.

There’s even more of it than can be imagined—
Of lavish big spenders, there in amounts unbounded:
Bubbles of universes within pockets more,
Across all the times and spaces beyond our shore!

What is the birthing source of this tremendous weight?
There is nothing from which to make the causeless cake!
Its nature is undirected, uncooked, unbaked?
There can’t be a choice to that ne’er born and awaked!

There can’t be turtles on turtles all the way down;
The buck has to stop somewhere in this town.
‘Nothing’ is unproductive—can’t even be meant;
All ever needed is, with nothing on it spent!

Yes, none from nothing, yet something is here, true;
But, really, you can’t have your cake and Edith, too!
And yet I’ve still all of my wedding cake, I do—
It’s just changed form; what ever IS can never go.

Since there’s no point at which to impart direction
The essence would have no limited, specific,
Certain, designed, created, crafted, thought out meaning!
Thus the Great IS is anything and everything!

This All is as useless as Babel’s Library
Of all possible books in all variety!
Yes, and even in our own small aisle we see
Any and every manner of diversity.

The information content of Everything
Would be the same as that of Nothing!
Zero. The bake’s ingredients vary widely,
And so express themselves accordingly.

What’s Everything, detailed? Length, width, depth, 4D—
Your world-line; 5th, all your probable futures;
6th, jump to any; 7th, all Big Bang starts to ends;
8th, all universes’ lines; 9th, jump to any;
10th, the IS of all possible realities.

Your elucidation is quite a piece of cake!
Yo, it exceeds, as well, and so it takes the cake.
Everything ever must be, because ‘nothing’ can’t?
Yes, it’s that existence has no opposite, Kant!

So, we’re here at the mouth of the horn of plenty,
For a free breakfast, lunch, and a dinner party;
Yet many starving are fed up with being unfed.
Alas, for now I have to say, Let Them Eat Cake!

Maybe

Probably not poetry, but lyrical nonetheless and one of the most profound pieces I have ever read.

There is no disgust with life, no despair, no sense of the nothingness of things, of the worthlessness of remedies, of the loneliness of man; no hatred of the world and of oneself; that can last so long: although these attitudes of mind are completely reasonable, and their opposites unreasonable. But despite all this, after a little while; with a gentle change in the temper of the body; little by little; and often in a flash, for minuscule reasons scarcely possible to notice; the taste for life revives, and this or that fresh hope springs up, and human things take on their former visage, and show they are not unworthy of some care; not so much to the intellect, as indeed, so to speak, to the senses of the spirit. And that is enough to make a person, aware and convinced as he may be of the truth, as well as in spite of reason, both persevere in life, and go along with it as others do: for those very senses (one might say), and not the intellect, are what rules over us . . . . And life is a thing of such small consequence, that man, as regards himself, ought not to be very anxious either to keep it or to discard it. Therefore, without pondering the matter too deeply; with each trivial reason that presents itself, for grasping the former alternative rather than the latter, he ought not to refuse to do so." — Giacomo Leopardi

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.


Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith

Interesting. One more author to review.

Late-night/Early-morning

Restless resolutions steal my safe, considered self away
Dislodging what I think I feel to make it possible today.
No mysteries to give me pause (constructed so that I might hide!)
Only the grip of iron claws that drag me to a world inside.
And yet, more beautiful it seems to cease to wonder evermore,
And be ruled by a world of dreams whose universe is in their core.
The sparrows and the robins soft are calling to th'awakening morn;
Before they can be borne aloft, within their songs my dreams are born.

This isn't a poem, strictly speaking. However it is some of the most lyrical prose that I have ever read. More so in that the lyricism survives or transcends translation, perfectly bridging form and content. It is from Fichte's Vocation of Man:

Shall I eat and drink only that I may hunger and thirst and eat and drink again, till the grave which is open beneath my feet shall swallow me up, and I myself become the food of worms? Shall I beget beings like myself, that they too may eat and drink and die, and leave behind them beings like themselves to do the same that I have done? To what purpose this ever-revolving circle, this ceaseless and unvarying round, in which all things appear only to pass away, and pass away only that they may re-appear unaltered;—this monster continually devouring itself that it may again bring itself forth, and bringing itself forth only that it may again devour itself?

This can never be the vocation of my being, and of all being. There must be something which exists because it has come into existence; and now endures, and cannot again re-appear, having once become such as it is. And this element of permanent endurance must be produced amid the vicissitudes of the transitory and perishable, maintain itself there, and be borne onwards, pure and inviolate, upon the waves of time.

Our race still laboriously extorts the means of its subsistence and preservation from an opposing Nature. The larger portion of mankind is still condemned through life to severe toil, in order to supply nourishment for itself and for the smaller portion which thinks for it;—immortal spirits are compelled to fix their whole thoughts and endeavours on the earth that brings forth their food. It still frequently happens, that when the labourer has finished his toil, and promises himself in return a lasting endurance both for himself and for his work, a hostile element will destroy in a moment that which it has cost him years of patient industry and deliberation to accomplish, and the assiduous and careful man is undeservedly made the prey of hunger and misery;—often do floods, storms, volcanoes, desolate whole countries, and works which bear the impress of a rational soul are mingled with their authors in the wild chaos of death and destruction. Disease sweeps into an untimely grave men in the pride of their strength, and children whose existence has as yet borne no fruit; pestilence stalks through blooming lands, leaves the few who escape its ravages like lonely orphans bereaved of the accustomed support of their fellows, and does all that it can do to give back to the desert regions which the labour of man has won from thence as a possession to himself. Thus it is now, but thus it cannot remain for ever. No work that bears the stamp of Reason, and has been undertaken to extend her power, can ever be wholly lost in the onward progress of the ages. The sacrifices which the irregular violence of Nature extorts from Reason, must at least exhaust, disarm, and appease that violence. The same power which has burst out into lawless fury, cannot again commit like excesses; it cannot be destined to renew its strength; through its own outbreak its energies must henceforth and for ever be exhausted. All those outbreaks of unregulated power before which human strength vanishes into nothing, those desolating hurricanes, those earthquakes, those volcanoes, can be nothing else than the last struggles of the rude mass against the law of regular, progressive, living, and systematic activity to which it is compelled in opposition to its own undirected impulses;—nothing but the last shivering strokes by which the perfect formation of our globe has yet to be completed. That resistance must gradually become weaker and at length be exhausted, since, in the regulated progress of things, there can be nothing to renew its strength; that formation must at length be completed, and our destined dwelling-place be made ready. Nature must gradually be resolved into a condition in which her regular action may be calculated and safely relied upon, and her power bear a fixed and definite relation to that which is destined to govern it,—that of man. In so far as this relation already exists, and the cultivation of Nature has obtained a firm footing, the works of man, by their mere existence, and by an influence altogether beyond the original intent of their authors, shall again react upon Nature, and become to her a new vivifying principle. Cultivation shall quicken and ameliorate the sluggish and baleful atmosphere of the primeval forests, deserts, and marshes; more regular and varied cultivation shall diffuse throughout the air new impulses to life and fertility; and the sun shall pour his most animating rays into an atmosphere breathed by healthful, industrious, and civilized nations. Science, first called into existence by the pressure of necessity, shall afterwards calmly and carefully investigate the unchangeable laws of Nature, review its powers at large, and learn to calculate their possible manifestations; and while closely following the footsteps of Nature in the living and actual world, form for itself in thought a new ideal one. Every discovery which Reason has extorted from Nature shall be maintained throughout the ages, and become the ground of new knowledge, for the common possession of our race. Thus shall Nature ever become more and more intelligible and transparent, even in her most secret depths; and human power, enlightened and armed by human invention, shall rule over her without difficulty, and the conquest, once made, be peacefully maintained. This dominion of man over Nature shall gradually be extended, until, at length, no farther expenditure of mechanical labour shall be necessary than what the human body requires for its development, cultivation, and health; and this labour shall cease to be a burden;—for a reasonable being is not destined to be a bearer of burdens.

This dominion of man over Nature shall gradually be extended, until, at length, no farther expenditure of mechanical labour shall be necessary than what the human body requires for its development, cultivation, and health; and this labour shall cease to be a burden;—for a reasonable being is not destined to be a bearer of burdens. — Pantagruel

We will all be born into retirement with no sweat.

:up:

Worldly Love:
A Love Story of the Earth and the Moon

As the moon, challenge night and gain the light;
As the rose, suffer the thorn—gain the fragrance;
Of life, surrender to live forever—
Enlightened more than a thousand suns.

I am thy moon, thy constant satellite,
Thy crystal paramour of day and night.
Above and below, and within thy sight,
I whirl around you in loving delight.

In a magnetic dance, I whirl and twirl,
Attracted to you, oh liveliest world.
Around you as a necklace I’m aswirl—
Wear me as thy crystalline gem impearled.

Wherever thou orbits ‘round Apollo,
I must twirl and whirl, hurry and follow;
Dust I gather, meteors I swallow,
Ranging far and wide through space not hollow.

Thy romantic beam, as Cupid’s arrow,
Pierces my heart and kills my sorrow,
Injecting life and love for tomorrow;
Henceforth, I’ll shine with this life I borrow.

Around you I whirl, a necklace of pearl,
Trailing afterimages of my world,
Adorning you, thy bosom bountiful,
With crystalline gems of another world.

Oh moon, thy Earth would wobble like a top
With your steadying influence not,
In turns quick of searing and freezing ruins,
Unto dying soon, without you, oh moon!

As twin planets, our orbits must convolve;
Into each our tidal motions dissolve.
Around a common center we revolve—
The focus from which our passions evolve.

As twin planets, each other’s way we pave,
With the push-pulse of the graviton wave.
We’re captured, but not as each other’s slave,
For to the sun our orbits are concave.

To your lines of flux my path I align—
I’m your constant paramour, crystalline.
Your world pours life on mine, on mine!
Dearest Earth, I must be thine, must be thine!

A magnetic beam emanates from thee,
Attracting me, holding me, kissing me.
Tidal love washes freely over me,
Linking you and me for eternity.

Basking warmly in your reflected light,
I’m bright, oh so radiant in your sight!
In the love and light of your spirit bright,
I need not ever face the endless night.

Your vibrations travel without a sound,
Circling from all directions to surround.
This affection touches me ‘round and ‘round,
And closely binds me to you—I’m love-bound!

We’re as different as midnight and noon,
Yet drawn close by the force of Earth and moon;
As lovers we merge, in a sweet eclipse,
When world meets world, as a kiss on our lips.

Oh, as your shadow of love covers me,
I am full, so full in the shade of thee;
When we overlap, that union is us;
The you is in me, the me is in thee!

As moon and Earth we bathe in radiance,
Cleansing our hearts in love’s grand alliance;
Around and around each other we dance,
Entranced by the whirl of our dalliance.

My blood runs warm with the sun’s heat at noon.
My spirit is swept by thee, swelling moon.
Space surrounds us. The tides flow through us.
Global rhythms are always playing our tune.

@schopenhauer1 @Antinatalist

I don't know if you saw this, but I thought you might be interested. It is not the same argument you guys use, but it's similar. I found it more convincing.

↪Pantagruel

@schopenhauer1 Antinatalist

I don't know if you saw this, but I thought you might be interested. It is not the same argument you guys use, but it's similar. I found it more convincing. — T Clark

Thank you for the information.

What information where you referring to? I didn't see a link.

What information where you referring to? I didn't see a link. — schopenhauer1

I was referring to Pentagruel's post up above. Here's the link again.

I can see that your poetry is heart-felt and sincere. It's romantic, which is fine. It is also philosophical, as the OP specifies. But it is not good poetry.

From "Advice to Lovers":

"Lovers to-day and for all time
Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:
Love is not kindly nor yet grim
But does to you as you to him.
"Whistle, and Love will come to you,
Hiss, and he fades without a word,
Do wrong, and he great wrong will do,
Speak, he retells what he has heard.
"Then all you lovers have good heed
Vex not young Love in word or deed:
Love never leaves an unpaid debt,
He will not pardon nor forget."

- Robert Graves

----------------------------------------------------------

"jisei" ("death poem") :

A small night storm blows
Saying ‘falling is the essence of a flower’
Preceding those who hesitate

—Yukio Mishima (composed as a prelude to his seppuku)

I can see that your poetry is heart-felt and sincere. It's romantic, which is fine. It is also philosophical, as the OP specifies. But it is not good poetry. — T Clark

What is wrong with it ? Constructive criticism, any ?

***

I'd be Interested to hear what people make of this one, if anything.
I haven't read it yet...long-length poems...not usually to my liking.
But I'm open to persuasion...and sometimes there are surprises...

The article gives background - why and how he wrote it - with extract:

A poem about the pandemic. 'Pandemonium'- 'a mock epic' - by Armando Iannucci:

It’s a poem in the style of those daunting but rather wonderful depictions of love and loss and the battle between good and evil: The Iliad, The Aeneid, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost.
The last of those works I spent three years studying for a PhD that I never quite managed to complete. There’s an unconscious connection: my title Pandemonium was a word invented by Milton and first used in Paradise Lost to describe the home of Satan and his fellow fallen angels. Maybe writing Pandemonium is my closure?...

Not long into lockdown, trying to understand my shock and bewilderment at what was going on, I started tapping out what became the poem Pandemonium. It began in a rush, 10 lines at a time, and then would stop. Maybe a month or so would go by and then more would come. It seemed instinctive to compare these people who had power of life and death over us to the immortal gods of Greek myth and religious verse, and see how they matched up. Maybe, too, poetry – with its play on ambiguity and double meaning, the fact that it need not be literal, that it thrives on evoking several interpretations at once – was the only form that, for me, helped make sense of the many contradictions the past 18 months have forced upon us.
— Guardian: Iannucci's epic covid poem

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/25/armando-iannuccis-epic-covid-poem-its-my-emotional-response-to-the-past-18-months

Not particularly philosophical, though obliquely expressing a philosophical outlook, I wanted to post this rhyme about the apparent futility of individual endeavor within a world made and moved by humanity. The scene is World War 1 France, the subject a mortally wounded or weakened soldier, either dead or near death. I have always found this short lyric particularly moving.


FUTILITY

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,—still warm,—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

- Wilfred Owen

Not particularly philosophical, — Michael Zwingli

Great poem. Plenty philosophical. Even if it weren't, there's always leeway for a good poem.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. — Michael Zwingli

Love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it. Love it. Love it. — T Clark

Myself as well. Owen served as a Lieutenant in the British Army during the First World War. Through his poetry, he was one of the major writers chronicling the horrors of the war. This is my favorite of his poems, of which I especially admire the rhyme scheme. The fact of an odd number, seven, of lines per stanza, I find interesting. Note how lines 1-3 and 2-4 of both stanzas uses alliterative/consonantal rhyme, and lines 5-7 uses true, direct rhyme. It's just really good in it's effect.

I.
Thy.
Lie.
Why?
Cry.
Sigh.
Ply.
Tie.
Fly.
Try.
Buy.
Vie.
Sly?
Pie.
I.

Modern life in a nutshell.

Myself as well. Owen, through his poetry, was one of the major writers chronicling the horrors of the First World War. This is my favorite of his poems, of which I especially admire the rhyme scheme. The fact of an odd number, seven, of lines per stanza, I find interesting. Note how lines 1-3 and 2-4 of both stanzas uses alliterative rhyme, and lines 5-7 uses true, direct rhyme. It's just really good in it's effect. — Michael Zwingli

You read poetry more closely than I do. When I first read it, I did note the meter as being very satisfying. Serious, but not too somber. Matter of fact. Even after your explication, the rhyme scheme doesn't jump out at me.

What gets to me is the imagery, especially the lines I quoted, but the rest as well. I really like "wake" and "woke." The first line is great. "Move him into the sun—." Completely concrete before it moves on to the imagery.

Modern life in a nutshell. — Outlander

Hi.
I
try
my
wry
reply
hereby.
sigh,
goodbye.

What makes a good poem? A fanciful, grandiose, magniloquent assortment of words, a cornucopia of kitsch and familiar sounds we call rhymes that connect to our primal mindsets of pattern recognition? No, it tugs at the very strings that make us human! The heart, some say. The soul? This is for the reader to decide. Slow and steady may win the race but more often than not short and sweet decide the deciders.

(Just the Intro for now)

FLORA SYMBOLICA
Lore and Legends of the Flowers

A tale I’ve written, invented, yes, hence
An attempt to unite the Christian pense
With the non-belief, in a middle ground,
Somewhere between mystery and good sense:

With flora mystical and magical,
Eden’s botanical garden was blest,
So Eve, taking more than just the Apple,
Plucked off the loveliest of the best.

Thus it’s to Eve that we must give our thanks,
For Earth’s variety of fruits and plants,
For when she was out of Paradise thrown,
She stole all the flowers we’ve ever known.

Therewith, through sensuous beauty and grace,
Eve with Adam brought forth the human race,
But our world would never have come to be,
Had not God allowed them His mystery.

When they were banished from His bosom,
Eve saw more than just the Apple Blossom,
And took, on her way through Eden’s bowers,
Many wondrous plants and fruitful flowers.

Mighty God, upon seeing this great theft,
At first was angered, but soon smiled and wept,
For human nature was made in His name—
So He had no one but Himself to blame!

Yet still He made ready His thunderbolt,
As His Old Testament wrath cast its vote
To end this experiment gone so wrong—
But then He felt the joy of life’s new song.

Eve had all the plants that she could carry;
God in His wisdom grew uncontrary.
Out of Eden she waved the flowered wands,
The seeds spilling upon the barren lands.

God held the lightning bolt already lit,
No longer knowing what to do with it,
So He threw it into the heart of Hell,
Forming of it a place where all was well.

Thus the world from molten fire had birth,
As Hell faded and was turned into Earth.
This He gave to Adam and Eve, with love,
For them and theirs to make a Heaven of.

From His bolt grew the Hawthorn and Bluebell,
And He be damned, for Eve stole these as well!
So He laughed and pretended not to see,
Retreating into eternity.

“So be it,” He said, when time was young,
“That such is the life My design has wrung,
For in their souls some part of Me has sprung—
So let them enjoy all the songs I’ve sung.

“Life was much too easy in Paradise,
And lacked therefore of any real meaning,
For without the lows there can be no highs—
All that remains is a dull flat feeling!

“There’s no Devil to blame for their great zest—
This mix of good and bad makes them best!
The human nature that makes them survive,
Also lets them feel very much alive.

“That same beastful soul that makes them glad
Does also make them seem a little bad.
If only I could strip the wrong from right,
But I cannot have the day without the night!”

So it was that with fertile delight Eve
Seeded the lifeless Earth for us to receive.
Though many flowers she had to leave behind,
These we have from the Mother of Mankind:

…

Hi.
I
try
my
wry
reply
hereby.
sigh,
goodbye. — T Clark

:rofl:

...there's always leeway for a good poem. — T Clark

Now, don't make me cart my copy of "Best Loved Poems of the American People" out of mothballs...