Timely wisdom from Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921)

Canopus

When quacks with pills political would dope us,
When politics absorbs the livelong day,
I like to think about that star Canopus,
So far, so far away.

Greatest of visioned suns, they say who list 'em;
To weigh it science almost must despair.
Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system,
Nor even know 'twas there.

When temporary chairmen utter speeches,
And frenzied henchmen howl their battle hymns,
My thoughts float out across the cosmic reaches
To where Canopus swims.

When men are calling names and making faces,
And all the world's ajangle and ajar,
I meditate on interstellar spaces
And smoke a mild seegar.

For after one has had about a week of
The argument of friends as well as foes,
A star that has no parallax to speak of
Conduces to repose.

#Poetry #Canopus #BertLestonTaylor #FrenziedHenchman #Politics

@AdrianRiskin as a counterpoint, here is Frank Ramsey:
Where I seem to differ from some of my friends is in attaching little importance to physical size. I don't feel the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities which impress me far more than size does. I take no credit for weighing nearly seventeen stone.

My picture of the world is drawn in perspective, and not like a model to scale. The foreground is occupied by human beings and the stars are all as small as threepenny bits. I don't really believe in astronomy, except as a complicated description of part of the course of human and possibly animal sensation. I apply my perspective not merely to space but also to time. In time the world will cool and everything will die; but that is a long time off still, and its present value at compound discount is almost nothing. Nor is the present less valuable because the future will be blank. Humanity, which fills the foreground of my picture, I find interesting and on the whole admirable. I find, just now at least, the world a pleasant and exciting place. You may find it depressing; I am sorry for you, and you despise me. But I have reason and you have none; you would only have a reason for despising me if your feeling corresponded to the fact in a way mine didn't. But neither can correspond to the fact. The fact is not in itself good or bad; it is just that it thrills me but depresses you. On the other hand, I pity you with reason, because it is pleasanter to be thrilled than to be depressed, and not merely pleasanter but better for all one's activities.

His dates were 1903-1930.

@RobertoArchimboldi

Lovely. Ramsey was such an interesting guy. I know his work from Ramsey's theorem, but this inspired me to look him up on wiki and there's so much more. Thanks for this!

@AdrianRiskin I mostly know him because of his work on truth. He was clearly a wonderful thinker