Poem

Nunc dimittis

AMIENS: What’s that ducdame?
JAQUES: ’Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I’ll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I’ll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.

--Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.5.54-57


In antiquity loud voices utter nonsense:
what’s in hieroglyphics is mostly rot;
Ezekiel, the Stagirite, and Plotinus bite
or numb; the Fathers of the Church talk
trash; Spenser’s a bit of a twit; even
Shakespeare and Marlowe are quite
silly here and there; Racine’s rootless;
Molière’s muddled; and as for those nitwit
romantics . . . Hark, I think I heard a skylark
fart!

But all of these, when held up to the light,
called fools into a circle, earned fame
and no matter how impenetrably dense,
are reprinted still, at some expense,
and in the age of Nasdaq, Bill Gates,
and Stanley Fish charm with their ducdame
as we bounce on from quim to quark.

Bore me again with more of the same!
Bore me amid the rising babble
of the academic rabble
who raise such noise that wit,
craft, and artful wisdom now make
no more impact than a tag-eared cow
snuffling dumbly in a feedlot
before itself becoming chow;
that Cicero himself could not be heard;
that Whitman would receive the bird;
that Herbert, Donne, and Eliot too
would end up quickly in the zoo;
that, in short, it’s time to say:
Adios, Lord! Have a nice day!

Have no fear, I’m not the least bit bitter.
I just wish I’d screwed that babysitter.

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine.
Now let your servant depart in peace.

Peter Dreyer
Charlottesville, United States

Peter Richard Dreyer is the author of 'A Beast in View', 'The Future of Treason', 'A Gardener Touched with Genius: The Life of Luther Burbank', and 'Martyrs and Fanatics: South Africa and Human Destiny'. He was born and brought up in South Africa, where he was involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, serving on the Cape Provincial Committee of the Liberal Party and as secretary of the Western Province Press Association. Dreyer left South Africa in 1961 and subsequently launched and edited 'Omphalos: A Mediterranean Review in Athens'. In 1972, however, he was expelled from Greece by the military junta then in power there and moved to the United States.

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