slug.com slug.com

1 4

The Logical Conclusion

When earth’s last thesis is copied
From the theses that went before,
When idea from fact has departed
And bare-boned factlets shall bore,
When all joy shall have fled from study
And scholarship reign supreme;
When truth shall ‘baaa’ on the hill crests
And no one shall dare to dream;

When all the good poems have been buried
With comment annoted in full
And art shall bow down in homage
To scholarship’s zinc-plated bull,
When there shall be nothing to research
But the notes of annoted notes,
And Baalam’s ass shall inquire
The price of imported oats;

Then no one shall tell him the answer
For each shall know the one fact
That lies in the special ass-ignment
From which he is making his tract.
So the ass shall sigh uninstructed
While each in his separate book
Shall grind for the love of grinding
And only the devil shall look.

--Ezra Pound

DMcCreery1956 8 Nov 19
Share

Be part of the movement!

Welcome to the community for those who value free speech, evidence and civil discourse.

Create your free account

1 comment

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Pound seems to have had good intel on the enemy plans.

I'm sure he also anticipated the volume of scholarly papers that would be written explaining what he really meant by every line of this poem 🤔 🙄

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:382413
Slug does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.