22.07.2007, 18:35
Illusions of Sense
The narrow senses over-ride Man's mind,
And into circumscription put his Thought;
Tie up the wings of th'Imagination, caught
And birdlimed, by the shows of things confined;
Strike flat the Earth's rotundity, and bind
Him down with countless threads by Custom wrought,
Like Gulliver by Lilliputians caught,
That seeing he sees not, or but purblind.
Our senses serve us well; but when, as here,
They have no correspondence with true sight,
'Tis like blind leading blind. Far o'er the clear,
Calm sea, a vessel's topmasts Thought invite;
And the grand mirror convex doth appear,
Not flat: thus Science may set Nature right.
The narrow senses over-ride Man's mind,
And into circumscription put his Thought;
Tie up the wings of th'Imagination, caught
And birdlimed, by the shows of things confined;
Strike flat the Earth's rotundity, and bind
Him down with countless threads by Custom wrought,
Like Gulliver by Lilliputians caught,
That seeing he sees not, or but purblind.
Our senses serve us well; but when, as here,
They have no correspondence with true sight,
'Tis like blind leading blind. Far o'er the clear,
Calm sea, a vessel's topmasts Thought invite;
And the grand mirror convex doth appear,
Not flat: thus Science may set Nature right.