Two Poems

I am very uneducated in the humanities. I have never learned to appreciate poetry, and I ignore almost all of it. There are only a couple of poems I ever learned by heart and this is one of them.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Shelley

I was much doted upon as a child, and given much education at home which put me far ahead of the other kids in school, so I grew up with a terrific ego. I was so conceited that my parents decided to take me down a peg by jumping me from 3rd to 5th grade, which made school just a little difficult for me. The Biblical lessons about the evils of pride seemed very significant to me, because my whole family was very proud. My parents routinely told me that I was far smarter and better than the other kids and than my teachers, and I believed them. So for me life consisted of struggles for self-control and self-improvement, punctuated by intervals of despair because the task seemed quite impossible. Jesus demanded total perfection, and also made it clear that none of us ever could succeed at all, and that we should keep on repenting and making promises we could not keep. It was a very odd philosophy of life. One part of it I liked was sneering at the rich and powerful because they were so sinful, and this poem suited that purpose as well as a reminder of my own insignificance.

But later I found Eastern thought, and began to learn to accept the strange contradictions in life: I am driven to try to improve myself, yet I cannot change myself all that much, and I cannot even really justify the task. The result of self-improvement is not that I become better than other people; I just do what I am suited to do, which is not better or worse than others. This is what Hesse wrote about many times, and I found this poem in The Glass Bead Game that makes this stranger point.

Soap Bubbles

From years of study and contemplation
An old man brews a work of clarity,
A gay and involuted dissertation
Discoursing on sweet wisdom playfully.

An eager student bent on storming heights
Has delved in archives and in libraries,
But adds the touch of genius when he writes
A first book full of deepest subtleties.

A boy, with bowl and straw, sits and blows,
Filling with breath the bubbles from the bowl.
Each praises like a hymn, and each one glows;
Into the filmy beads he blows his soul.

Old man, student, boy, all these three
Out of the Maya-foam of the universe
Create illusions. None is better or worse.
But in each of them the Light of Eternity
Sees its reflection, and burns more joyfully.

I think the temptation to feel important, powerful, and destined for greatness is the lure of the Serpent. My nation is about to begin an imperial war in its arrogance and pride, convinced that they are all-powerful and all-wise. I think we would all do far better to settle for a simple job well-done.

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