And thought can lay bare the inmost soul
To take Castle Ego by storm at a stroll
And free the careerist, racked by the counterfeit.
Are these the battlements in the dark air?
Then storm the walls and the ego dethrone!
The Cwm whispers to my soul, ‘Now dare
More deeply to plunge in the meaning of the dungeon:
It’s the factory floor, the office and lab -
See the climbers writhing on Idwal’s slab?
With a little imagination you’ll see yourself there.
‘Deep calls to deep in the roar of my waterfalls,
The mirth of my streams is a begetter of growth;
But while good conscience calls, the bad disenthralls
And my lake will wrinkle disdain in its sloth.’
So I come to learn the truth and the lie,
Gather my humanity in the glance of a sheep’s eye,
Climb the living air to where the buzzard calls -
‘Suspended over an unfathomable depth’.
O, airy Physics, that no bedrock finds
But Heisenberg’s chasm! ¹ Through faith I accept
The gap unwept, that the plasterer not binds
But opens. From vice-like, all-possessing fact
This Houdini slips through the gap not packed -
And as more head’s forced, the more guts intercept...