ENVOY

                   Although it’s good to see the school year end
                   And summer’s leisure beckoning ahead
                   Where my creative ventures may extend
                   Bending to where the Muse would have me led,

                   It’s also good to get back in my traces
                   When in September a new term begins,
                   Confronting three new classes of fresh faces,
                   Some with anxiety and some with grins.

                   For every term a new adventure starts,
                   Each course exploring blossoming new fields
                   Appealing to not only heads but hearts
                   And at the best, enlightening wisdom yields.

                       But for the nonce, my aim is to enjoy
                       Composing verse—and this is my envoy.

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PHILOSOPHY

for Nicholas Maxwell

                    Knowing what's most valuable to do
                    And doing it is how you prove you’re wise;
                    It’s not some arcane knowledge you accrue,
                    But deeds you contemplate and realize
                    That bring to needy ones some benefit:
                     A truth our great philosophers have writ.

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Dear Alan,

                  I am very touched to receive “Philosophy” dedicated to me.  Funnily enough, there are, I think, three main motives behind my efforts to get a hearing for wisdom-inquiry.  One is that I think wisdom-inquiry is necessary if humanity is to learn how to create a better, wiser world – something that is essential if we are to resolve the global problems that loom before us.  Another is personal: it would be gratifying to make a contribution to thought.  And the third has to do with the role that wisdom-inquiry might play in relieving suffering, and waste of life, of the world’s poor.  But very few people think philosophy has anything to do with relieving suffering – and indeed most of it does not seem to have much, if anything, to do with it.  The distance between an argument for wisdom-inquiry, and a better life for poor people living in what used to be called ‘the third world’ seems immense, almost to the point of no contact between the two being possible at all.  On the other hand, I cannot help but feel that a world in which universities put wisdom-inquiry into practice would do better in helping all of us to live flourishing lives.

               All good wishes,

                              Nick

Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom

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SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

                    What would ambition do?  What would it not,
                    Going so far as even kill a king,
                    Conniving in a treacherous, fatal plot
                    To execute this most appalling thing.

                    Just such a question Shakespeare would explore,
                    Contriving a dramatic spectacle
                    Confronting us with scenes we must deplore
                    Ensuring that his plays be never dull.

                    Thus Hamlet and Macbeth are dramas that
                    Arouse the pity and the terror which
                    Is kin to what a high-wire acrobat
                    Evokes who seems from there about to pitch.

                         For all the anguish that such drama stirs,
                         Catharsis, though, is what at last occurs.

 

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HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS

                    The marvel and the mystery we are,
                    Compounded from the dust of a dead star,
                    We all too sadly fail to recognize
                    When doing so would help to make us wise:

                    To see and feel how precious all life is
                    Would change our consternation into bliss
                    By teaching us the arts of stewardship
                    Lest into some catastrophe we slip.

                    “The glory, jest and riddle of the world,”
                    We still have virtues left to be unfurled-
                    Once we out-grow our adolescent phase
                    And show the sapience our name displays.

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THE BARD

 
                 The gift that Shakespeare owned for wielding words,
                 Composing plays and poems by the score,
                 A feat that heavenly genius undergirds
                 Making his celestial music soar,
                 Is just to be amazed by, not surpassed:
                 Though many others seek to rival him
                 It’s only his achievements that will last
                 Since his bright artistry will never dim.
                 That does not mean that scribblers such as I
                 Should not attempt to follow in his way,
                 Though we may never hope to soar so high
                 Nor think our efforts will in memory stay.
                      No matter how we study and strive hard,
                      We shan’t surpass the genius of the Bard.

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HUMAN EVOLUTION

                    The next stage in our evolution’s course
                    Will be to grow from human to humane,
                    Once we have wholly bonded with our Source
                    And reached the highest rung of being sane.

                    This is the lesson of the Prince of Peace,
                    Whose message was that only love’s supreme,
                    While inhumane hostility must cease,
                    Which seems today as but an idle dream.

                    When power-seekers aim to gain control
                    To benefit the crooked and the cruel,
                    It’s time we shift toward the opposing pole,
                    Allowing generosity to rule.

                        While once the way was that of tooth and claw,
                        We’re learning to obey Love’s Higher Law.

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RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAMS

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