Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell

Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)



Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.

She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.

Why should she? Her religion is to tell
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or hell

Staring at darkness. In her holy cell
There is no darkness ever: the pure candle
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.

Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!--knows the world she sees
Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!

And still he offers the sea shell . . .

What surf
Of what far sea upon what unknown ground
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

52 sec read
231

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA AXXA CXXC CXX CXX C XDDX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 936
Words 175
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. more…

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