'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts - Spokeshave (the chimp paradox TXT) 📗

Caesar soliloquizing:

Life is a problem intricate to solve:

With outstretched arms to grasp, we know not what

From out the future hidden by a veil

With woof too dense for eye of man to pierce;

Yet doth imagination pictures forms

Which, when we would embrace, evade our touch

And vanish into nothingness; while still

We vain pursuit ever persistent make.

Euclid from chaos order did evolve

And on the scroll of Fame hath writ those laws

Which Time, relentless, ne'er can thence efface.

For Truth, immutable, is there entombed.

But he, in flawless mental armor robed,

Did crusade make where Science hath her home,

And from her vaults where Truth was close entombed

He raped their locks and brought the treasure forth.

Long mankind groped in darkness, nor did dream

That laws harmonious could measure space

And count the cycles that should hail return

Of each recurring comet on its round.

Thus deep uncertainty enrobeth man:

He comes like morning bringing with him light;

He goes like evening, ent'ring portals dark

Where none can track him to his final doom

And know that Immortality's kind arms

Shall hug him to her breast and bear him on

To Fields whose verdure wears a brighter hue,

Or whether Entity shall on the wings

Of fickle Fate be borne to final rest,

Who shall the mystery of being solve?

We see the birdling break from prison shell

And dream that we have found the source of life.

Vain thought! the egg were but a cunning mask

Which Nature wears to hide her handiwork.

The spark electric issues from its cell

Clothed with a pow'r the jealous gods might crave;

But when or how it entity conceived,

Is hid within creation's caverns deep.

Now, in the realm of pow'r politic, reigns

The God of Chaos anchor'd to his throne,

And it remains for one of giant mind,

Well disciplined in all scholastic lore,

To break the chains which hold that anchor fast,

And crush the Pow'r disordered seated there.

Am I the instrument designed by Fate

To, Euclid-like, from this anarchic whole

Evolve the laws which shall Disorder deep

Within the grave entomb and on that throne

The God of Order seat, and in his hand

Imperial scepter place, to rule the world

Politic, as it on its axis rolls,

Unharmed by venomed darts of turpitude?

I dreamed of formulating certain laws

Which economic matters would control.

The midnight lamp, companion of my toil,

Has burned in vain. Alas, I see it now.

When the great "Commoner," of wisdom full,

A plank within our platform did insert

That our good ships which coastwise trade would ply

Should float as free as sea-gull on the wing

Through that deep channel, by our cunning wrought,

Which links Pacific's waters to the Gulf,

I, fool-like, did him earnestly applaud!

Again my soul in bitterness doth surge

Because from distant Isles the lightning brings

Dire words of sour complaint from either clan,

Which like to gladiators in the ring

Seem but prepared to battle to the death.

I listened to the frail but honeyed words

Of one who held a judgeship in that clime,

Only to find disgruntlement their source;

And now it shames me, who have been cock-sure,

That I should failure see emblazoned there.

How could I prudence thus have cast aside

And now my stomach fill with humble pie?

Alas! my dreams that fed on self-esteem

Are vanished as the dew before the sun.

(With energy)

Another plank I'll wrench with giant hand.

And wreck the platform, "if I bust a gut."

(Exit to drink an orangeade to quiet his nerves.)

Scene II: The Governor's room.