First philosopher’s song, Aldous Huxley

FIRST PHILOSOPHER’S SONG

A POOR degenerate from the ape,

Whose hands are four, whose tail’s a limb,

I contemplate my flaccid shape

And know I may not rival him,

Save with my mind—a nimbler beast

Possessing a thousand sinewy tails,

A thousand hands, with which it scales,

Greedy of luscious truth, the greased

Poles and the coco palms of thought,

Thrids easily through the mangrove maze

Of metaphysics, walks the taut

Frail dangerous liana ways

That link across wide gulfs remote

Analogies between tree and tree;

Outruns the hare, outhops the goat;

Mind fabulous, mind sublime and free!

But oh, the sound of simian mirth!

Mind, issued from the monkey’s womb,

Is still umbilical to earth,

Earth its home and earth its tomb.

The end