Ignorance
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Oh happy he who cannot see
With scientific eyes;
Who does not know how flowers grow,
And is not planet wise;
Content to find with simple mind
Joys as they are:
To whom a rose is just a rose,
A star--a star.
It is not good, I deem, to brood
On things beyond our ken;
A rustic I would live and die,
Aloof from learned men;
And laugh and sing with zest of Spring
In life's exultant scene,--
For vain my be philosophy,
And what does meaning mean?
I'm talking rot,--I'm really not
As dumb as I pretend;
But happiness, I dimly guess,
Is what counts in the end.
To educate is to dilate
The nerves of pain:
So let us give up books and live
Like hinds again.
The best of wisdom surely is
To be not overwise;
For may not thought be evil fraught,
And truth less kind than lies?
So let me praise the golden days
I played a gay guitar,
And deemed a rose was just a rose,
A star--a star.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 99 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | abxbxcdC xexexfaf xgxgxxxe xaxbxcdC |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 952 |
Words | 179 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
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"Ignorance" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/32179/ignorance>.
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