The Touch Of Time Does More Than

In The Beginning The Gods Made Man, And Fashioned The Sky And The Sea, And The Earth's Fair Face For Man's Dwelling-place, And This Was The Gods' Decree: "lo, We Have Given To Man Five Wits: He Discerneth Folly And Sin; He Is Swift To Deride All The World Outside, And Blind To The World Within: So That Man May Make Sport And Amuse Us, In Battling For Phrases Or Pelf, Now That Each May Know What Forebodeth Woe To His Neighbor, And Not To Himself.

Creeds Matter Very Little... The Optimist Proclaims That We Live In The Best Of All Possible Worlds; And The Pessimist Fears This Is True. So I Elect For Neither Label.

And One Would Worship A Woman Whom All Perfections Dower, But The Other Smiles At Transparent Wiles; And He Quotes From Schopenhauer . Thus Two By Two We Wrangle And Blunder About The Earth, And That Body We Share We May Not Spare; But The Gods Have Need Of Mirth.

The Realization That Life Is Absurdand Cannot Be An End, But Only Abeginning. This Is A Truth Nearly Allgreat Minds Have Taken As Their Starting Point.

If We Assiduously Cultivate Our Powers Of Exaggeration, Perhaps We, Too, Shall Obtain The Paradise Of Liars. And There Raphael Shall Paint For Us Scores And Scores Of His Manifestly Impossible Pictures... And Shakespeare Will Lie To Us Of Fabulous Islands Far Past 'the Still-vex'd Bermoothes,' And Bring Us Fresh Tales From The Coast Of Bohemia. For No One Will Speak The Truth There, And We Shall All Be Perfectly Happy.