The Jungle

Truth is the fourth dimension. By her grace Motion, the idiot of time and space, Grows reasonable, so that the spirit sees Behind the aimless drag of categories The moving centuries, whose gestures mirror And dissipate the cloudy shapes of error. O there’s the long way back, the dawns that scatter Like startled birds about the spirit, and chatter Of animal voices seeking lucid speech In colonies of darkness. Truth can stretch, Though motionless, and set a hatchet blazing A path through the jungle where an ape is gazing At the edge of a little light, with dripping muzzle, Black writhing palms, and eyes a drowsy puzzle Of fears and beastlike hopes. Then the light reaches His pelt and holds him fast. In vain he snatches At the sheltering trees, in vain the leafy dance Down the long avenues of ignorance. Knowledge and the pain of knowledge fly beside him, And, where the leaves are darkest, clutch and ride him Until he sloughs the shape of beast and can Stand in the dawn upon his feet a man.

But the jungle is not cleared, and still the shapes Of time and space and error move like apes.