Biblio Bat’s Reviews > The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue > Status Update

So thinking, he returned to duty, reclaimed by the actual world where time is real and in which, therefore, poetry can take no interest.

Facing another long day of servitude to wilful authority and blind accident, creation lay in pain and earnest, once more re-
prieved from self-destruction, its adoption, as usual, postponed.

Yet the noble despair of the poets
Is nothing of the sort; it is silly
To refuse the tasks of time
And, overlooking our lives,
Cry—‘Miserable wicked me,
How interesting I am.’
We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

Will you remain
Such a pleasant prince? Probably not.
But you’re handsome, aren’t you? even now
A kingly corpse. I’ll coffin you up till
You rule again. Rest for us both and
Dream, dear one.

If you sing, I’ll save souls.
When you’re hurt, I’ll hold your hand.
If you smile, I’ll smelt silver.
When you’re afraid, I’ll fetch you food.
If you talk, I’ll track down trolls.
When you’re on edge, I’ll empty your ash-tray.
If you whisper, I’ll wage wars.
When you’re cross, I’ll clean your coat.
If you whistle, I’ll water wastes.
When you’re bored, I’ll bathe your brows.

Besides, only animals who are below civilization and the angels who are beyond it can be sincere. Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

The primary colours
Are all mixed up; the whole numbers
Have broken down, the big situations
Ceased to excite.

The primary colours
Are all mixed up; the whole numbers
Have broken down, the big situations
Ceased to excite.


حالا دقیقا تو موج ناامیدی این جنگ و صلح مسخره من باید این تیکه رو می‌خوندم.

Quant says:
In the wild West they are whipping each other.

Emble says:
In the hungry East they are eating their books.

Rosetta says:
In the numb North there are no more cradles.

Malin says:
The sullen South has been set on fire.

Does the Moon's message mean what it says:
'In that oldest and most hidden of all places
Number is unknown'? Can lying lovers believe their bones'
Unshaken assurance
That all the elegance, all the promise
Of the world they wish is waiting there?

And that we cannot be deaf to the question:
‘Do I love this world so well
That I have to know how it ends?'