Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A PURE HYPOTHESIS, by MAY EMMA GOLDWORTH KENDALL Poet's Biography First Line: A lover, in four-dimensioned space, describes a dream Last Line: In three-dimensioned space! Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares | ||||||||
(A Lover, in Four-dimensioned space, describes a Dream.) AH, love, the teacher we decried, That erudite professor grim, In mathematics drenched and dyed, Too hastily we scouted him. He said: "The bounds of Time and Space, The categories we revere, May be in quite another case In quite another sphere." He told us: "Science can conceive A race whose feeble comprehension Can't be persuaded to believe That there exists our Fourth Dimension, Whom Time and Space for ever balk; But of these beings incomplete, Whether upon their heads they walk Or stand upon their feet -- "We cannot tell, we do not know, Imagination stops confounded; We can but say 'It may be so,' To every theory propounded." Too glad were we in this our scheme Of things, his notions to embrace, -- But -- I have dreamed an awful dream Of Three-dimensioned Space! I dreamed -- the horror seemed to stun My logical perception strong -- That everything beneath the sun Was so unutterably wrong. I thought -- what words can I command? -- That nothing ever did come right. No wonder you can't understand: I could not, till last night! I would not, if I could, recall The horror of those novel heavens, Where Present, Past, and Future all Appeared at sixes and at sevens, Where Capital and Labor fought, And, in the nightmare of the mind, No contradictories were thought As truthfully combined! Nay, in that dream-distorted clime, These fatal wilds I wandered through, The boundaries of Space and Time Had got most frightfully askew. "What is 'askew'?" my love, you cry; I cannot answer, can't portray; The sense of Everything awry No language can convey. I can't tell what my words denote, I know not what my phrases mean; Inexplicable terrors float Before this spirit once serene. Ah, what if on some lurid star There should exist a hapless race, Who live and love, who think and are, In Three-dimensioned Space! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VARIATIONS: 14 by CONRAD AIKEN VARIATIONS: 18 by CONRAD AIKEN LIVE IT THROUGH by DAVID IGNATOW A DREAM OF GAMES by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL APOLOGY FOR BAD DREAMS by ROBINSON JEFFERS GIVE YOUR WISH LIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS LAY OF THE TRILOBITE by MAY EMMA GOLDWORTH KENDALL |
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