A Poem For Today - Man walketh in a vain shew

[Ken Dickinson]



Man walketh in a vain shew, 

he shews to be a man, and that's all."

We seem to live in the State of variety, 

wherein we are not truly living but only in appearance: 

in Unity is our life: 

in one we are, from one divided, we are no longer.

While we perambulate variety, we walk 

but as so many Ghosts or Shadows in it, 

that it self being but the Umbrage of the Unity.

The world travels perpetually, 

and every one is swollen full big with particularity of interest; 

thus travelling together in pain, and groaning under enmity: 

labouring to bring forth some one thing, some another, 

and all bring forth nothing but wind and confusion.

Consider, is there not in the best of you a body of death? 

Is not the root of rebellion planted in your natures? 

Is there not also a time for this wicked one to be revealed?

You little think, and less know, 

how soon the cup of fury may be put into your hands: 

my self, with many others, have been made stark drunk

with that wine of wrath, 

the dregs whereof (for ought I know) 

may fall to your share suddenly."

From: "Heights in Depths and Depths in Heights 

(or TRVTH no less secretly than sweetly sparkling out its Glory from under a cloud of Obloquie)" 

by the Ranter Jo. Salmon (1651).