The h2g2 Poem
Created | Updated Jun 1, 2006
The Mind Behind
As I was walking home one dreary day
Along the straight and boring Cambridge Road,
Reflecting I, how pointless is the way
Mankind must totter on beneath its load.
When footsteps heard I, coming up behind,
Though turned I not my head to see who came
Fear, rather than anticipation, in my mind
For muggers were about, to rob and maim.
However, t'was none wishing harm approaching,
The lady, when she caught me up, was fair,
And sweet her smile, when, conversation broaching,
Methinks I saw a halo in her hair.
Dear friend, begins she, you have lost your way
Along life's road, which now you see as blind,
When everywhere you look, by night or day,
You'll find there is, behind it all, a mind.
Here comes a rider on a horse; could you
Design a better creature, man to serve?
To carry him, or for his work to do?
But for his tail, there's yet another use.
A sycamore, this tree that we are passing,
And yonder pine tree, there across the road;
Though lovely they, with wondrous view surpassing,
Their timber, and its resin, bears my load.
And note that tabby cat on window sill;
Who could, for lonely ones, design a better friend?
Yet 'tis not of this aspect speak I will,
But of his inside, when he meets his end.
Two kinds of tree and horse's tail, now add the entrails of a cat.
Then from all these, man forms the means to hear,
The works of Chrysler, Schubert and Vivaldi,
Sibelius, Verdi, Britten, Berlioz.
From all of these, our ears can list' to things
Divine, upon this Earth a little space.
For sans those timbers, skills and strings,
Those wondrous sounds could not our hearing grace.
For strings, brass tubes, and notes of wood vibrate
In perfect octaves, one and all unite,
And harmony of music integrate,
In rondo, nocturne, scherzo, to delight.
Creation's wonders, minds of our's surpass,
We look, and cannot see the woods, for trees;
But time will come, we see not dark through glass,
Then struck by wonder, fall upon our knees.
