Ego: Eyes, my eyes, you should apprise
Of values your spiritual principle, your soul,
Whose end is quietism, not your soul advise!
Eyes: What’s essential for you by conscience is styled,
Which makes itself felt when you evaluate success
With the yobbo I see and the wasting child.
Ego: Eyes, guardians of the soul, too bonny
To betray me! Would you stymie your soft-hued ego,
While the forceful inherit the earth, making money?
Eyes: I look out, as Nature is tapping the pane,
On a garden where weeds have supplanted blooms -
And will you, to compete, deflower your brain?¹
Ego: My windows, like cat’s-eyes, the light you smuggle
To see dreams and ideals by should kindle the Darwinian:
Is evolution not driven by success in life’s struggle?
Eyes: It is not the fittest who survive today,
But the colonizers, slavers, deluders, fleecers,
While the fit are driven to the wall for fair play.
Ego: I’m not so unscrupulous as to court infamy:
I’d not be accepting my duty to my honour
If I bent down backs or the rules of economy.
Eyes: Enlightened self-interest is no spur to altruism,
Which is doing some good for goodness’ sake
And giving free rein to our commensalism. ²