Saturday commute cv: A walk in the meadow

         this wasn't here yesterday

Springtime has a way of re-viving the same impression which gained such currency, at such strenuous insis-tence, when we were told, history is over. On our after-breakfast stroll today, Thorny and I were repeatedly drawn to remark as novelties emerged to our inspection. Whereas my gaze may stray into diffuse approbations of a meadow in morning sun, and my inhalations commingle somewhat broadly, his remain excruciatingly thorough and detailed. Yet even he, an English dog, does not con-strue a new blossom as a new genus, and doesn't claim to have invented it. Is he in-corruptible because he is subhuman, or because he stud-ies facts?

  The longest tyranny that ever 
    swayed
  Was that wherein our ancestors
    betrayed
  Their freeborn reason to the
    Stagirite
  And made his torch their univer-
    sal light.

  So truth, while only one supplied
    the state,
  Grew scarce, and dear, and yet
    sophisticate,
  Until 'twas bought, like emp'ric
    wares or charms,
  Hard words sealed up with 
    Aristotle's arms.
  ..























John Dryden
To my honoured friend,
  Dr Charleton ..
1663
Selected Poems
Steven N. Zwicker and
  David Bywaters, editors
Penguin Books, 2001©

Finn Donnelly