Confucius’s Sonnet
Mere force brings no
true order since forced change
Warps from without
and thus can never fit
An inner nature that’s
rejecting it.
Without such fit,
there’s but apparent change.
As mere force is
deficient, sages thus
Discount it. Righting wrong, they find a way
To change a man by
his own choices. Thus,
They speak and do
precisely. Sages sway
With virtue and
right language of the kind
They’ve learned in
studies of the old archives
Of ritual and common
mythic mind.
Their teaching
teaches them. Example drives
Without a whip. On
earth, in heaven, too,
Truth bans all
thrashings hells purport to do.
Lao Tzu’s Sonnet
Would breath that
loathed to make a sound in life
Somehow reverse
itself in airless death?
Would it somehow convert
itself at last
Into fools’ terms? No--death is muter still.
I’ve neither
arrogance nor wish to harm.
I’d not presume an
ant cares how my mouth
Might label it. I all the more of course
Would not presume that
heaven gives a damn.
Man’s categories cause
him needless ill—
A man can’t covet or
despise a thing
Some category’s not
disjoined from him.
Man's words spread categories' ills about.
Without air heaven
must be wordless. Hence,
I'm mute where no decrees expel me hence.
© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.
