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Against Perfection

"He has observ'd the Golden Rule

Till he's become the Golden Fool."

—Blake


If, once in the sequence of our life,

the instinct soul starts keeping time, it's key—

the rest is just vocabulary

when spirit takes tomorrow for a wife,

in place of Lady Trouble and Strife,

supplanting thus snare drum and fife;


beyond the perfect, fate may flout

the tools of time, concealing doubt:

Apple watch, sundial's gnomon,

if not clepsydra’s dripping spout.

Far-off—no hapax legomenon—

there's also doleful Gaia's song.

How in a sonnet of fourteen lines

bring down to earth the welkin's rhymes?


Elephant clepsydra, or water clock, in Al-Jazari's "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices" (1315)



Note: "hapax legomenon," Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον = something said only once.




September 29, 2024

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