Четверг

The Maze

Antropos apteros for days
Walking whistling round and round the maze,
Relying happily upon
His temperament for getting on.
The hundredth time he signed, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed,
And recognized that he was lost. “
Where am I?" Metaphysics says
No question can be asked unless
It has answer, so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.
If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect:
A God-build maze would be,
I’m sure The Universe in Miniature.
Are data from the world of
Sense, In that case, valid evidence?
What in universe I know,
Can give direction how to go?
All Mathematics would suggest
A steady strait line is the best,

But left and right alternately
Is consonant with History.
Aesthetics, though, believes all
Art Intends to gratify the Heart:
Rejecting disciplines like these,
Must I, then, go which way I please?
Such reasoning is only true I
f we accept the classic view,
Which we have no right to assert,
According to the Introvert.
His absolute pre-supposition
Is – Man creates his own condition.

This maze was not divinely built,
But it secreted by my guilt.
The center that I cannot find
Is known to my unconscious mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.
My problem is how not to will;
They move most quickly who stand still;
I’m only lost until I see
I’m lost because I want to be.
If this should fail, perhaps I should,
As certain educators would,
Content myself with this conclusion:
In theory is not solution.
All statements about what I feel,
Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal:
My knowledge ends where it begins;
A hedge is taller than a man”.
Antropos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next,
Looked up and wished he be a bird
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.

Auden

(26/10/2006)