Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:31:20 -0600
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: poetry--not at all romantic


>Is it true, ye gods, who treat us
>As the gambling fool is treated,
>O ye, who ever cheat us,
>And let us feel we're cheated!

___________________________________________
One, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not is;
Surely this is not that; but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be
	without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main; but faith, on the whole, is
	doubt;
We cannot believe by proof; but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves; yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four; but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain, but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins; God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk
	in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part; but half is more than the whole.
Clearly, the soul is the body; but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one, but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastadon was; pterodactyls were common as cocks;
Then the mammoth was God; now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are; yet many of these are askew.
You are certainly I; but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for thehen; but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is; and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle, and diddle, we take it, is dee.

(A reply to Tennyson's 1867 "The Higher Pantheism." 1880. The poet declined
to suppress a volume of his work when he was offered Victoria's
laureateship by Desraili on the death of Tennyson. The offer was withdrawn.
)

G


George Trail
gtrail-AT-uh.edu
U.of Houston