Dr Sigmund Freud Discovers The Sea Shell

Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered

Figuring what anything is for:

Enough for her devotions that things are

And can be contemplated soon as gathered.

She knows how every living thing was fathered,

She calculates the climate of each star,

She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care

Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.

Why should she? Her religion is to tell

By rote her rosary of perfect answers.

Metaphysics she can leave to man:

She never wakes at night in heaven or hell

Staring at darkness. In her holy cell

There is no darkness ever: the pure candle

Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.

Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!

She will not touch it!—knows the world she sees

Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!

And still he offers the sea shell . . .

What surf

Of what far sea upon what unknown ground

Troubles forever with that asking sound?

What surge is this whose question never ceases?